SAVAGE WINDS by R.J. Merle: Inspiration and $50 GC Giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the book tour for Savage Winds by R.J. Merle, a YA Sci-Fi Adventure/Horror available now from Towering Pines Publishing.

 
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Click on the banner to visit other stops on this tour. Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning.

BLURB

A dangerous conspiracy unfolds...

In Author R.J. Merle’s whirlwind start of the Children of the Elements series, a clumsy teenage techno-geek struggles to protect kidnapped children from a covert government organization responsible for creating their abilities to control the five elements.

A mighty wind…


Eighteen-year-old Stedford Thackett’s conspiracy theorist brother ensnares him in a real life children-as-weapons plot, while a determined scientist grooms happy-go-lucky five-year-old Darcie Lynn Carpenter to use the wind as a deadly weapon.


Out of control...


Despite the firm hand of Scientist Nora Hicks, Stedford struggles to rescue the kids and escape, even as Darcie Lynn fights to gain control of the surging power of the savage winds.

GUEST POST

What inspired you to write Savage Winds?

Oddly enough, the initial idea or concept for the Children of the Elements, A Secret City Science Fiction Adventure Series, came from watching an episode of History Channel’s Serial Killer Earth series.

When I came across the episode, the possibility of the weather being controlled to prevent such devastation surfaced in the back of my mind, followed immediately by the questioning the idea of whether nature could ever truly be directed or harnessed.

Savage Winds is the first book in the series and was derived from asking all those what-ifs derived from watching that episode of Serial Killer Earth.

The five-year-old girl featured in Savage Winds along with eighteen-year-old Stedford Thackett and Scientist Nora Hicks is kidnapped and forced to cause harm with her wind play.

EXCERPT

No matter what she had to do, Darcie Lynn Carpenter was going home. Weren’t nobody going to stop her.

Dreary and sad, the rain fell from the clouds like the whole wide sky cried buckets of tears. How did the rain smell so much like dirt, and wet dirt so like rain?

Not waiting for Miss Nora to say so, she tugged the oxygen tube free. She blew air out her nose to rid herself of the plastic yuck.

The strong breeze—all grabbing, slapping, giving, taking—whipped the tubing away. The tank’s handle ripped from her grip. Ping. Clank. The tank rolled, dropped off the hilltop. Gone.

“Wait,” Nora said in the button thing in her ear, “we haven’t obtained our readings.”

No more of Nora’s scolding.

None of her lies.

Pulling the clip from her earlobe, Darcie Lynn dug the ear-button out of the other ear, dropped both, and played on. She coughed. Floaty lightness dipped into her forehead. Kind of like when she sneaked and ate too much fudge in one day.

“Do it, Darcie Lynn,” yelled Junior.

A squeeze in her head, and the coughing stopped. Stedford did good because the new collar thingy made play easier. She waved and circled her fingers.

The breeze whirred.

Just outside the town below, a twister blew up.

Within seconds, she sent a tornado, half again as wide as the earlier one in the field, toward the way Junior showed her.

Even though the little girl part of her on the hill cried, the wind-play piece of her soared.

—from Savage Winds


About Savage Winds:

A dangerous conspiracy unfolds...
In Author R.J. Merle’s whirlwind start of the Children of the Elements series, a clumsy teenage techno-geek struggles to protect kidnapped children from a covert government organization responsible for creating their abilities to control the five elements.

A mighty wind…
Eighteen-year-old Stedford Thackett’s conspiracy theorist brother ensnares him in a real life children-as-weapons plot, while a determined scientist grooms happy-go-lucky five-year-old Darcie Lynn Carpenter to use the wind as a deadly weapon.

Out of control...
Despite the firm hand of Scientist Nora Hicks, Stedford struggles to rescue the kids and escape, even as Darcie Lynn fights to gain control of the surging power of the savage winds.

About the Children of the Elements Series:

When nature refuses to be controlled, can mankind endure?
Brainwaves altered by a covert government project based out of the Secret City of Oak Ridge, the Children of the Elements are brought together and tested as weapons of mass destruction. Their struggle to free themselves and survive in the hostile East Tennessee Mountains creates massive chaos and threatens to bring about an apocalypse.

AUTHOR Bio and Links

Author R.J. Merle stepped out of the realm of Top-Secret documents (shh, don’t tell…) to write sci-fi and paranormal fiction.

R.J. survived and escaped both the entertainment field and the government-contracting environment, craves the Walking Dead, and entertains what-if tidbits about “supposed” technological and biological advances.

No stranger to the goings on in the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, R.J. Merle blends a down-home flavor with a former in-the-know—hypothetically, of course—technical background to craft the twists and intrigue of Secret City Adventures.

Author Links:

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/R.J.-Merle/e/B00P8E0X5A

BN Author Page: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/r.j.-merle

Website: http://www.rjmerle.com/COTE.html

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/RJ-Merle-Author/1409155235976147

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10944948.R_J_Merle

Blog: http://rjmerle.blogspot.com/

Buy Links:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Smashwords

GIVEAWAY

The author will be awarding a $50 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour, and a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn host.

a Rafflecopter giveaway