I had the great pleasure and honour of beta-reading The Princess and I a little while back...and now it's finally time for the cover reveal!
Synopsis:
Megan is content with her life, despite her parents' death and her brother Malcolm's job that keeps him busy at the King's castle. But when she is offered the position as Princess Christine's lady-in-waiting, Megan is glad of the change in scenery and accepts it with the hope that she can spend more time with her brother. The promise from Malcolm of lessons in swordsmanship only adds to her enthusiasm.
However, helping keep an eye on the emotional and excitable young lady proves to be much harder than becoming her friend. As rumours of war circulate the castle, Megan strives to encourage her new friend even as she tries to settle the doubts and fears in her own heart when her responsibility in protecting the Princess is put to the test. Follow the unwanted adventure which serves to teach her that loyal friendship, true love, and God's amazing grace will always triumph over revenge, greed, and hate.
About the Author:
Rebekah grew up surrounded by family members who appreciated and read good literature. First, she fell in love with the stories her parents read aloud to her from the Bible and books like The Chronicles of Narnia, Great Expectations, The Hobbit, and Anne of Green Gables. After learning to read on her own, she discovered other fantastic books which helped to build her ever growing imagination.
She completed her first written work at the tender age of eight and now uses it to humble herself whenever the need arises. The story did serve to show her that God had given her a desire to write, however, and from that moment on Rebekah has never looked back or regretted picking up her pencil and becoming an author.
This eighteen-year-old homeschool graduate lives in rainy Western Washington and is currently working on receiving her BA in English in order to further her passion for creating worlds on paper.
Ok...you guys ready to see the cover? I could make you scroll down...but I'll be nice ;) (Don't take it for granted though xD)
Voila!!
Ahhh.....isn't it just soooo pretty?? I love it!
The book will be available March 3, 2017. Can't wait! :)
Hmmm…where should I start? Let me think - oh I know!
I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!!!!!
(I admit, I may or may not be just a teensy weeny bit biased…since I may or may not have helped edit the book and the author may or may not be one of my best friends… ;))
Some scenes were kinda unrealistic at times, but it’s definitely a start for a budding new author! There’s always room for improvement, right? :) But not all the scenes were unrealistic. Some scenes were so well described that I felt like I was actually there. Especially the ones in the kitchen for some reason. It’s SO fun to read about cooking/baking food - or anyway, I think so ;)
I really liked Janefer and Mel’s characters … super hard to choose a favourite. The two girls balance each other out well and their love for each other is evident. Definitely a friendship worth envying! :) Mrs. Davis is a very sweet lady and very much reminds me of a close family friend in my own life ;) Detective Jack Whitby is - well, a very interesting character *spoiler* My sister especially was very “sad” that Jack was actually a bad character ‘cause she loves the name Jack (because she may or may not have a teeny crush on Constable Jack Thornton from WCTH. Who doesn’t? ;)) And Melba! Love her! She’s such a sweet bubbly person, would love to meet her in person!
Janefer’s questions and thoughts, especially while she was in the hospital. I found quite relatable. There are times when Satan throws so many things your way you end up giving in and letting doubt and depression just darken your mind. Then it feels like you’re just falling and you’ll never be able to get back up. But then God shines His light through the darkness and makes you see through the clouds - realize that no matter what might happen, God is always in control and He’s got a plan.
And Janefer’s dad. *spoiler* ‘Kay…so I don’t know about you; but I literally had tears streaming down my face when I first read the scene of Janefer and her dad’s last time being together. Then when I edited it with Livs…I started crying again because it was just so sweet and so sad and well…yeah. Ask Liv. When I edited the story, I ended up leaving her a rather lengthy comment with detailed descriptions on exactly how I was reacting to the whole thing ;) Poor Liv was probably going “Uhhh….I’ve got the weirdest friend…” xD
The mystery woven throughout the story was well-written and the clues were nicely spread out throughout the plot. It was kinda easy to figure out who the bad guy was, but I still enjoyed it. It was fun to see the plot develop and oh yeah, just saying, Miss Nickerson is really good at leaving her readers on cliffhangers… ;) And the plot twists…loved ‘em!
So yeah! All in all, I really enjoyed this novella by Olivia and I look forward to reading the *squeals* sequel! God bless you in your writing career, Livs! :)
About the Author
Olivia Nickerson is a young and aspiring author who lives with her a family in Ontario, Canada. As a child, she enjoyed writing little stories to print out on the computer and giving out to her family. Shen she is not writing, she enjoys playing sports at her youth group, hanging out with her family and friends, and reading. She can be reached through several social media sites:
In 2015, I posted the first chapter of Racing for Time on my blog. I know that my previous “stories” were cheesy and not very well written. I wanted to write a good story, with non-cheesy people in it. I got great feedback from my posts of Racing for Time, and eventually the idea came that I should publish. It was a long process with writing, editing, and finally--publishing. I hope you will enjoy this book and to quote Ms. Earhart: “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
Welcome again to the blog, Liv! Thank you so much for helping me out in this! No problemo! So excited you're releasing your book! So...your first question, what was the inspiration for Racing for Time?
My inspiration for writing Racing for Time started a couple of years ago, in 2015, when I was on my blog. In the past, I had written fairly cheesy stories that weren't very good, so I wanted to write a good story. I wrote the first chapter and posted it. It seemed to have good feedback, so I posted the next chapter that same day. I finally finished writing the book the next year, 2016! From there, I went on to publishing it! :)
That's awesome! What did you find the best part of writing? The worst?
The best part of writing, I'd have to say, was perhaps during the first couple of chapters. Maybe the first 2 chapters? They were fairly easy. The worst part......was maybe when I wasn't on a roll with writing, and not feeling many ideas, or feeling a bit worried that it wasn't fitting together, or a bit frustrated.
Oh yeahh... writer's block can be hard. But you overcame it, so kudos to you! :D Now what would you say is your favourite scene in the entire book?
Ohh... favorite scene? hmm.... Well, the scene with the ladle poised over her head is quite funny. Especially during editing with my good friend, we were sending each other photos of what it might look like. Here's one I sent:
Hehe! I remember that picture ... all too well ;) What was the hardest scene for you to write? The hardest scene to write, that I can remember would probably be when Detective Whitby is at the Davis's house, searching in their basement. I was juggling two ideas, and it wasn't coming to me very well at the time.
This question might be a teensy bit hard . . . apologies ahead of time ;) Who is your favourite character? (If you can choose a favourite ;))
My favorite character.. would probably be Janefer, I think. :) She seems to be very real and not super fake, with a bit of humor. Melba is so sweet as well... :D
Oh yes! Melba is very sweet! :) And last question... any plans for a sequel?
Well.... YES! The sequel has already been started! :D Hopefully to be published this year as well. It will hopefully be just as exciting and thrilling as the first one!
Hurray! I can't wait to read the sequel :) Thank you for coming to the blog, Livs!
Thanks so much!
About the Author
Olivia Nickerson is a young and aspiring author who lives with her a family in Ontario, Canada. As a child, she enjoyed writing little stories to print out on the computer and giving out to her family. Shen she is not writing, she enjoys playing sports at her youth group, hanging out with her family and friends, and reading. She can be reached through several social media sites:
In 2015, I posted the first chapter of Racing for Time on my blog. I know that my previous “stories” were cheesy and not very well written. I wanted to write a good story, with non-cheesy people in it. I got great feedback from my posts of Racing for Time, and eventually the idea came that I should publish. It was a long process with writing, editing, and finally--publishing. I hope you will enjoy this book and to quote Ms. Earhart: “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
My friend, Olivia, is releasing her new book, Racing for Time!!! *squeals* She put a ton of hard work behind this and her book is absolutely amazing! If you haven't read it yet, oh my goodness, you totally should! Also...before we get onto the spotlight...
It's her birthday today! (Sorry Liv, I told you I'd say it on here ;))
HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLIVIA!!!!!!!
Ok, now we can get onto the rest of the post ;)
About the Book
After a frightening car crash that lands Janefer and her best friend Melanie in the hospital, Janefer is set on bringing the culprit to justice. When Melanie is found to be missing, Janefer is even more determined to discover the person behind it all.
Through a maze of lies and deceit, spiritual questions arise, leaving her confused and troubled. As Janefer races to gather clues leading to Melanie, she gradually learns to trust God with her life, no matter what the outcome.
Can Janefer find out the truth before Melanie is hurt--or worse?
Olivia Nickerson is a young and aspiring author who lives with her a family in Ontario, Canada. As a child, she enjoyed writing little stories to print out on the computer and giving out to her family. Shen she is not writing, she enjoys playing sports at her youth group, hanging out with her family and friends, and reading. She can be reached through several social media sites:
In 2015, I posted the first chapter of Racing for Time on my blog. I know that my previous “stories” were cheesy and not very well written. I wanted to write a good story, with non-cheesy people in it. I got great feedback from my posts of Racing for Time, and eventually the idea came that I should publish. It was a long process with writing, editing, and finally--publishing. I hope you will enjoy this book and to quote Ms. Earhart: “Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
Hello all! I feel like I keep saying this. . . but I am so sorry for the lack of blogging on my part! :( Confession: I am not a very good time manager, it's a skill I need to work on. I thought I had gotten the hang of it, but well, yeah. Bunch of things got thrown my way and hehe, I found out time managing hadn't actually been quite mastered yet *blushes* Just want to say, thank you to all of you who are still hanging with me even though I haven't really been posting. Means so much :)
Ok, so now that I've got that out of the way ;) I'm gonna attempt to wrap up January and some of December as well since I didn't do a December Highlights posts *grins guiltily*
Life
Before I forget, I finally updated the Our Family page. So if you'd like to check that out, you can go HERE.
// Took an updated family photo, this time with Sweet Pea (yesss....finally found a name for her! Thanks, Faith ;)) The hilarious thing about our family pictures is that each time we take a new one, the tree just gets smaller and the number of people just get bigger. And the focus! My poor camera gets so confused on what to focus on, there being so many faces and all xD
// Sister time! Dad found our little tent from yeeeaarrrss ago and so we had a girls' campout in the living room. By the lighted Christmas tree, sipping hot drinks and munching on toaster-oven s'mores, playing on Picmonkey...couldn't have been better!
// Three words. My. Little. Pony.
Ok so first off, you all should know, Snow White has discovered a love of drawing...and her art has been incredible! MLP was a popular subject for her for awhile, so Tiger Lily and I joined in to help her. We came out with uh...quite a few pictures! :D
// Umm....just a random picture... of pictures
Yeah...we're wackos ...
// Christmas Day - Toblerone was simply exuberant that day. His enthusiasm in every single gift he
opened was precious :D
// Sledding. Dad may or may not have turned our toboggan hill into one of those black diamonds ... even I'm too scared to go down it ;P
This isn't even the part I'm scared about. What you can's see is beyond the bend. At the start of the hill is a monstrous pile of snow that Dad built up with his Kubota. Simply monstrous. When you're at the top, you can't even see the bottom. And it goes straight down. At like a 90 degree angle. And the 'loading dock' is super narrow too, so if your sled is too long and you don't balance properly, you either go straight down the hill or backwards, which hurts just as much. No sane person would go down it.
Ahhh....we celebrated Tiger Lily's 15th birthday!! So blessed to have her as a sister, best friend,
and partner in crime. Love her a ton!!
// Hosted several parties, some Christmas, some New Year, and one for the birthday girl too. It was an amazing time with friends and a nice opportunity to get to know people from the new church too :)
// *squeals* I am absolutely in love with this picture. She is an utter doll! We have a baby girl to play dress up with againnnnnn *cackles evilly* xD
// Snow White got a chocolate mould for Christmas and for a time, our family was surprised with many sweet little chocolates :)
// Another random picture of Sweet Pea. (my iPod is gonna explode with all the pictures I have of her ;))
// Spent lotssss of time with friends...
Seriously, these guys are the best. When we get together, do you know what we do? We have jam sessions. It. Is. Amazing. Last time, we had vocals (harmony and melody complete!), guitar, fiddle, piano, whistle, and cajon (anyone know how to pronounce that? ;) Tiger Lily and I have settled on sounding like honking geese when we say it xD) Really, it is sooooo much fun! I LOVE hanging out with all of them!!!!! :D
My very awesome group of friends ^_^ We're actually missing a couple people (LEA!!!!!) in this pic...
// Cinderella photo shoot! This was soooo much fun! And a great opportunity for sisters time too :D We're hoping to make a video, but we'll have to see... ;)
// Celebrated Ironman's 11th birthday in January! Tiger Lily and I made him a Lego Star Wars cake. (wish I could show you the whole cake but it's got his whole (and real :P) name all across the top xD) Anyway, Tiger Lily and I wanted to try this new decorating technique where you dab coloured icing on the cake, then run a spatula across it to smear it. It actually turned out better than we expected!
// First skiing trip of the year! And this time, Livs came with us! Soooo much fun! (guys, Liv is fast. Like really, really fast. It was her first time skiing...and she caught on so fast. By the end of the day, she was shooting down those hills faster than the rest of us :P
Oooo yes...talking about first-time skiers, Toblerone started skiing too!!!! He is SO adorable, with those miniature boots and skis. And he's super good too. At the end of the day, he was exhausted, but he managed to ski on even the blue hills! Which was uber amazing! It's so weird and funny and cute when you see little people skiing on rather big hills. Or maybe that's just me. . .
// Baking classes. Did I tell you about the courses I was taking? If not...well, now you know ;) Here are some of the things I've made so far:
// Teaching. Our online school closed down on some unfortunate circumstances, and it was very sad :( We're still praying for the head of the school. He had done such a good job running everything, it was a major blow to everyone to hear that he had to close down. But as my friend (Allison, where are you, gal? ;)) reminded me with a quote from Sound of Music: "When the Lord closes a door - somewhere He opens a window". And he certainly did. An amazing woman, (can't give names just for privacy reasons :)) had this idea to start a school for people to teach independently. They could teach anything they wanted, and age limits ranged from kids to full grown adults. We've got a good mix of pretty much everything and everyone. Kids from age 10 to adults are teaching things from growing pumpkins, to Home Ec, to Drawing, to American History ... it's amazing I tell you! I volunteered as an English teacher and the experience has been sooo amazing. My students are all awesome (two of 'em are my brothers ... which makes class uh...interesting ;P). But thank the Lord for the opportunity to experience this!
Also, the teachers from Landry have been absolutely amazing. They continued to teach their classes at a very-much-so discounted price for all the families' sakes. Seriously, they are amazing. They are sacrificing their time just to continue to educate. They are dedicated. Love them so much!
//Racing for Time. My friend is hosting her blog tour for her brand new book...starting in TWO DAYS!!! Can't wait! :D
// Random "conversation":
Toblerone crying hard
Dad: What's wrong?
Dare Devil: I didn't mean to...
Dad: Where does it hurt?
Toblerone *wails*: NOWHERREEEEE
Mom, Tiger Lily, and I all die laughing
// Oh look. Another picture of Sweet Pea. I wonder how that got there?
Music
I've been listening to a lot of songs...but these are the two newer ones.
Come Alive - Lauren Daigle
Priceless - For King and Country
Books
*cringes*
So..umm...yeahhh. Time hasn't really allowed for much reading. I did finish reading Beyond the Horizon by Jesseca Dawn...it's an absolutely AH-mazing book! OH, and in December I finally finally FINALLY got to finish the Blades of Acktar series. Tiger Lily and I were talking and squealing about it for DAYS. And now we're positively dying for Book 4 ;)
In the whole month of January up 'til now...I haven't even read 1 full book. In the process of reading Water Princess, Fire Prince and I'm re-reading Ruins of Gorlanbut I haven't finished them yet *sighs* Anyone got extra time they could give me?
Goals
PRIORITIZE. School, teaching, work, blogging, family, friends, and even most importantly, my relationship with God. Everything's been all jumbled up and my main goal is to prioritize. Pray for me, please ;)
That about wraps it up for now! I will see you all, Lord willing, in a couple days for Liv's blog tourrrrr! :D
