Books are food for my soul! Pull up a beach chair and stick your toes in the sand as the Jersey surf rolls in and out, now open your book and let your imagination take you away.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Order of the Seers Trilogy by Cerece Rennie Murphy (Author Guest Post / Book Spotlight)

In association with Pump Up Your Book Tours, Jersey Girl Book Reviews is pleased to host the virtual book tour event for Order of the Seers Trilogy by Author Cerece Rennie Murphy!






Author Guest Post

In Search Of Superpowers


I believe in superpowers– the ability of human beings to do almost anything.

We can know the future.
Move mountains
Stop speeding bullets and
Change the world.

I believe it because I see it everyday in the real world. The decisions we make to care or not to care, to act or remain passive, to build or destroy not only change the world– they create the world we live in.

If you still don’t believe me, think about the impact your parents’ words had on you as a child. With a few careful phrases, they could turn a horrible experience into a wonderful learning opportunity. They could make a terrible boo-boo into a badge of honor. And they could take the cruelest words and turn them into the reason why you were the better person. Your parents (and your teachers) created your reality with mere words.

Even people not important to you can change your reality and alter your future with just their thoughts. Ever walk into your job feeling great – maybe even looking forward to facing the challenges of your day? Then, before you can even hang your coat up, someone hits you with his or her negativity and it changes your reality– it changes you. Suddenly you’re tired, pessimistic. All you want to do is go home. That person’s ability to change your outlook will affect how you interact with everyone in your path all day long. You could decide to purposefully be more encouraging, helpful, and positive in retaliation against the negativity that was cast your way because you also have the power to deflect and defend your own mental space or, you could decide to pass that negativity right along and ruin everyone else’s day so that the cycle continues.

You can do this because you are just that powerful– powerful enough to make or ruin someone’s day, self-image or life, just with your words. You might be thinking that “ruin someone’s life” is an extreme notion, but is it? A well-placed lie can make the truth disappear, so that justice is eclipsed right along with it. If you can do all that with your thoughts and words, just imagine what you can do with your actions… whoa.

The crazy thing is that so many of us don’t even realize how powerful we are. We walk around like we’re carrying water pistols when we’re really carrying canons, with the ability to fill or blow a hole through someone’s universe. And because we don’t know, we often fire off haphazardly– completely unaware of the reality we are creating.

Order of the Seers is about a group of people who have an extraordinary ability – they can see the future and are enslaved for it. Though they are powerful, the Seers are almost completely disconnected from their gifts because they are defined and controlled by an organization that exploits the Seers for their own gain. It is only after the first Seers escape that they begin to truly discover the full extent and purpose of their power and when they do, they change the world, not because of the extent of their powers as much as the decision to use whatever power they have for good.

Because, as super humans, we always have a choice as to when or how we use our abilities. The future is nothing more than what we are determined to create.

Dictators fire bullets.
Peacekeepers stop bullets from ever being fired.
The best teachers can help a student find their wings and defying the gravity of low expectations.
Bullies can stop a child before they ever get off the ground. 
The voter can stand against oppression.
The spectator merely watches, allowing evil to reign for one more day.

As with the characters in my book, the power is within us. The only question is will you recognize your power for the awesome force that it is, and if you do, what will you do with it?




About The Author



Cerece Rennie Murphy fell in love with science fiction at the age of seven, watching “Empire Strikes Back” at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C., with her sister and mom. It’s a love affair that has grown ever since. As an ardent fan of John Donne, Alice Walker, Kurt Vonnegut and Alexander Pope from an early age, Cerece began exploring her own creative writing through poetry. She earned her master’s degrees in social work and international relations at Boston College and Johns Hopkins School for Advance International Studies, respectively, and built a rewarding 15-year career in program development, management and fundraising in the community and international development arenas – all while appreciating the stories of human connection told in science fiction through works like Octavia Butler’s “Wild Seed,” Frank Herbert’s “Dune” and “The X-Files.”

In 2011, Cerece experienced her own supernatural event - a vision of her first science fiction story. Shortly after, she began developing and writing what would become the Order of the Seers Trilogy. Cerece lives just outside of her hometown of Washington, D.C., with her husband, two children and the family dog, Yoda.

For more information, follow Cerece at www.cerecerenniemurphy.com


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Book Spotlight







Order of the Seers Trilogy by Cerece Rennie Murphy
Publisher: LionSky Publishing
Publication Date: September 30, 2014
Format: Paperback - 164 pages
              Kindle
              Nook
ISBN: 978-0985621049
Genre: Science Fiction


BUY THE TRILOGY: Order of the Seers Trilogy
Book 1: Order of the Seers
Book 2: The Red Order
Book 3: The Last Seer
AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLE
GOODREADS


Discuss this book in our PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads by clicking HERE


Book Description:

What would you do if you held infinite power in the palm of your hand?

The Order of the Seers Trilogy poses this question within a story that fuses action, mystery, and romance within a science fiction adventure that keeps you at the edge of your seat.

Captured and enslaved for their extraordinary gift, a group of individuals, known as Seers, are forced to serve a ruthless world organization that uses the power of the Seers to exploit the ultimate advantage: knowing the future. While a brother and his Seer sister fight to evade the group that hunts them, an unlikely captured Seer plots his escape from within the organization and sets off a chain of events that will change the world.

The journey begins with Order of the Seers (Book I) and continues with The Red Order (Book II). The final chapter in the Order of the Seers Trilogy, titled The Last Seer (Book III), will be released on September 30, 2014.


Book Excerpt:


Chapter 1: The End

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Liam was losing his patience. “Aw, come on! Are you serious? You can’t want to ride this thing again!”

Instead of answering her older brother, Lilli remained in her seat as the Ferris wheel conductor looked on expectantly, hand outstretched and waiting for another two tokens.

The way Lilli’s skinny arms hugged her book bag while she stared blankly at the pressed metal floor of their “Fairy Land Caboose” made it hard for Liam to stay angry. The sight of her looking so dejected softened him enough to give the conductor his fifth set of tokens in less than 45 minutes. Liam settled back into his seat just as the lap bar clamped down uncomfortably against his thighs.

“Lilli,say something. Why’d you drag me out here if you were just gonna sulk? I hate the carnival, you know that.”

“I know something… okay? Just… trust me. We have to stay here.” Her voice was so low he could barely hear her over the wind-up music that was blaring from the overhead speakers.

“Did Mom say something to you?”

Lilli responded to his question with silence and a barely discernable shake of her head back and forth. He tried again.

“Lilli! Did Mom…?”

“Yes,” she snapped.

They both fell silent again as Liam took in the latest weird thing day. Lilith Knight, or Lilli as she preferred to be called, had always been of the strange. Even when she was five,she could beat Liam at chess lazily, without even thinking about it. She would find things and give them to you before you asked for them. Before you, or even she, knew why. Up until recently, he thought she was just a freak. No biggie. All little sisters are like that, he told himself.

It was only in the past few months that his perception of her began to shift, after her prediction that he would catch his new girlfriend, Krista, kissing his teammate Lance in the locker room after their championship game. At the time, he’d brushed off her premonition as meddling. Krista wasn’t even his girlfriend and his team was 1-1 with the whole basketball season ahead of them.

He’d forgotten her warning completely until two months later when he ran back into the locker room after winning the championship to get the jacket he’d left behind and immediately smelled Krista’s perfume. When he found them, two thoughts overshadowed the scene unfolding in front of him. The first was that what they were doing wasn’t really “kissing,” though he could see how a sheltered thirteen-year-old would describe it that way. His second thought was that Lilli was right; she was exactly right. He was so stunned by Lilli’s accuracy that he didn’t even bother to disturb them, leaving his new ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend to their business. From that moment, Liam understood that Lilli wasn’t just a freak, or more accurately, that she wasn’t a freak at all. She was special…gifted.

The sound of Lilli’s sniffling followed by the trembling of her body as she began to cry uncontrollably broke the long silence that had fallen between them. What the…, Liam half-mumbled as his mind swung from irritation to absolute bewilderment. Slowly and deliberately, Liam moved his palms down the front of his face as he fought the urge to shake the truth right out of her and end whatever this was. But he couldn’t. She’s so brittle already, he thought, without any idea as to why. So instead, he reached out to envelop his sister in his arms, trying to soothe her and comfort her from some unknown force.

“Lilli, it’s all right. I’m sorry, okay? Don’t cry. Just… tell me what’s going on. Why are we here?”

He tried to wait patiently, to rein in the confusion and frustration that had been piercing through the calm day he had planned for himself when he woke up that morning, as cool and carefree as any sixteen-year-old boy. It was Lilli who had dragged him out of the house before he could even wolf down his second bowl of Honeycombs. “Mom said you have to take me to the carnival. NOW!” She had demanded.

He had started to head upstairs to launch his appeal when his eye caught his mother’s note on the refrigerator door. “Take Lilli to the fair. NOW.—Love, Mom,” it read.He knew that meant his mother had left the house early; there was no appeal to be made. Begrudgingly, he slipped on his sneakers and grabbed the car keys, all the while wondering if Lilli was still too young to be left at the fair by herself.

His earlier thoughts of abandonment brought him back to his sister’s form beside him. Not knowing what else to do, Liam simply held her tight as her convulsing turned to trembling, and finally, back to stillness. At the top of the Ferris wheel,she finally spoke.

“It’s over now, we can go home,” she whispered. But as impatient for answers and a reprieve from big brother duties as he was, Liam knew that it was not over. The emotionless tone in her voice scared him. It made him want to stay on the Ferris wheel he’d been begging to get off of a few short minutes ago. As the music died down and their feet got closer to the ground, he suddenly felt conflicting urges to stay where he was and to rush home to his mother. As the ride came to a stop, he suddenly realized with profound certainty that this was much more than one of Lilli’s “episodes.” Something was very, very wrong.

When Liam pulled his father’s green 2002 Saab in front of their small brick house, everything seemed as it always did—quiet and predictable in their modest yet comfortable home. They had lived in a much bigger house before his father died, but Liam never minded sharing a bathroom with his mother and sister. All the toys and trinkets that had mattered to him when he was a child were rendered insignificant the moment his mother told him that his father would never come home again. As he got out of the car and began to take the front steps two at a time, he noticed that Lilli had stopped at the tree stump his mother had cut down the week before. Sitting down, her eyes remained on the ground. Just as his mouth formed the shape of a question,she spoke.

“No, you go. I can’t see it again.”

Liam didn’t stop to ask what she meant. Whatever she meant, he was sure it was worse than he thought. He tried to hold back the swell of fear in his chest as he ran to the front door, but his emotions spun out of control the moment he tested the front door knob and found it opened—easily. They never left the front door unlocked.

When he stepped into the house, he actually felt the life, the person he had been, rush past him and out the door as his eyes took in the overturned, splintered remains of their living room. It was a feeling he’d felt only once before, when his father died. But what made it worse, what made it permanent, was lying in the middle of the floor, with its contents thrown everywhere. It was his mother’s purse, which had not been there when he left that morning.

“Mom!” he shouted as he raced up the stairs to her room. “Mom. Please!” he shouted again, but no one answered. In every room he looked, it was the same - scattered clothes, broken mirrors, and silence—a deafening silence that rang louder than the sound of his own shallow breathing.

If he took the stairs at lightning speed to make it to the second floor, an age could have passed during his descent. The entire house consisted of three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a small open dining area that you could see clearly from the front door. As he walked down the steps, he knew there was only one room left to check. His mind was frozen on what to hope for as his hand reached the end of the banister. If she wasn’t in the kitchen, she might have been taken, but at least there was a chance she was still alive. If she was in the kitchen, it was unthinkable.
Lilli’s words came to him just as he rounded the doorway to the kitchen.

“No, you go. I can’t see it again.”He found his mother sitting with her feet planted on the floor, shoulder width apart, bright eyes open and cast to the ceiling, with a hole blown through the middle of her chest.






Book Trailers

Book 1

    

Book 2




Book 3







Virtual Book Tour



Tour Schedule:

Wednesday, October 1 The Writer’s Life – Author Interview / Book Spotlight
Friday, October 3 Read My First Chapter – Book Excerpt
Monday, October 6 As The Page Turns – Author Interview / Book Spotlight
Tuesday, October 7 Moonbeams Over Atlanta – Book Spotlight
Friday, October 10 The Story Behind The Book – Author Guest Post / Book Spotlight
Monday, October 13 El Rincon de Becks – Book Spotlight
Wednesday, October 15 Jersey Girl Book Reviews – Author Guest Post / Book Spotlight
Friday, October 17 Deal Sharing Aunt – Book Review
Monday, October 20 Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – Book Spotlight
Tuesday, October 21 Emeraldfire’s Bookmark – Book Review
Friday, October 24 Hey, Miss Adventures! – Book Review
Monday, October 27 I Can Has Books? – Book Review
Tuesday, October 28 El Rincon de Becks – Book Review
Wednesday, October 29 My Life, Loves and Passion – Book Review
Thursday, October 30 Nay’s Pink Bookshelf – Book Review
Friday, October 31 GenGen’s Book Blog – Book Review




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