We here at Lytherus are so excited to be the first stop on Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston’s blog tour for their new book Frozen. Melissa de la Cruz is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for teens including The Au Pairs series, the Blue Bloods series, the Ashleys series, and the Angels on Sunset Boulevard series. She has worked as a fashion and beauty editor and has written for many publications including The New York Times, Marie Claire, Harper’sBazaar, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Allure, The San Francisco Chronicle, McSweeney’s, Teen Vogue, CosmoGirl! and Seventeen. She has also appeared as an expert on fashion, trends and fame for CNN, E! and FoxNews. Michael Johnston is Melissa de la Cruz’s husband and co-creator of the Blue Bloods and Witches of East End series, and the co-author of the Wolf Pact series.
Melissa and Michael collaborate in every capacity in crafting their books, from plot outlines to character sketches and dialogue, from first draft to final polish. They have a daughter and live in Los Angeles and Palm Springs.
Unfamiliar with the book? Here’s the synopsis:
From New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston comes this remarkable first book in a spellbinding new series about the dawn of a new kind of magic.
Welcome to New Vegas, a city once covered in bling, now blanketed in ice. Like much of the destroyed planet, the place knows only one temperature—freezing. But some things never change. The diamond in the ice desert is still a 24-hour hedonistic playground and nothing keeps the crowds away from the casino floors, never mind the rumors about sinister sorcery in its shadows.
At the heart of this city is Natasha Kestal, a young blackjack dealer looking for a way out. Like many, she’s heard of a mythical land simply called “the Blue.” They say it’s a paradise, where the sun still shines and the waters are turquoise. More importantly, it’s a place where Nat won’t be persecuted, even if her darkest secret comes to light.But passage to the Blue is treacherous, if not impossible, and her only shot is to bet on a ragtag crew of mercenaries led by a cocky runner named Ryan Wesson there. Danger and deceit await on every corner, even as Nat and Wes find themselves inexorably drawn to each other. But can true love survive the lies? Fiery hearts collide in this fantastic tale of the evil men do and the awesome power within us all.
Here’s their awesome book trailer:
Michael wrote up a thought-provoking post about what humans are doing to the world and the inspiration it had on a part of the world of Frozen. Without further ado, take it away Michael!
Trash Islands
Michael Johnston
In 2009, I read in article in the New York Times about an island made entirely of junk twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean. This new landmass was a loose collection of trash: plastic bottles, cans and refuse that had been caught in the North Pacific gyre over the years and slowly combined to create a large floating pile of rubbish. The current moves in a slow circle that concentrates ocean debris into one location, creating this trash island. When I learned “the Pacific garbage patch” as the article called it, I was disgusted, saddened, and maybe a little shocked by the extent to which we had altered our natural landscape. We think of our oceans as beautiful, pristine and serene, an endless blue, but they are no longer that way.
There are actually five of these trash islands scattered across the globe. I wondered what would become of these islands. Would they continue to grow? Would the garbage patch eventually form a garbage continent? The trashbergs that populate FROZEN’s Ruined Pacific were the product of these musings. I tried to imagine what these new landforms would look like if they continued to grow and solidify for another hundred years, turning into icebergs of junk. The trash in our ocean is still just a loose collection of small plastic materials, but it won’t stay that way forever. The junk pile is growing bigger every day. What, if anything, can we do about it before it’s too late?
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Want more goodies? Follow along with the whole blog tour:
9/23 Lytherus
9/25 Paranormal & Urban Fantasy Reviews
9/27 Fiktshun
9/30 Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books
10/2 Word Spelunking
10/4 Owl Always Be Reading
10/7 The Compulsive Reader
10/9 Parajunkee’s View
10/11 There’s a Book