Layers of Life: Welcome KC Sprayberry and TAKE CHANCES

Good Morning! My name is KC Sprayberry. Donna Alice Patton of Layers of Life has let me hijack her blog today. The purpose is to tease all of her very dedicated readers with information about my soon-to-be-released YA coming of age novel, Take Chances.

We're going to do an interview of Take Chances main character, Julie Bond today.

1. Introduce yourself to our readers. What should we know about you?

Well, my name is Julie Bond. I'm almost eighteen when the story starts. Wow! Eighteen, an adult. How cool is that?

Anyway, I have this great group of friends, but I'm always scared that they'll tell me one day that they're going to disappear from my life. Even after four years, I can't help feeling like this. See, I grew up as a military brat, always moving away from my friends, always leaving my school, sometimes in the middle of the year. That totally sucked, but I now have the chance to graduate from the same high school I started almost four years ago, so I can't let anything stop that. I really won't let that happen.

2. What do you think about the author? Tell us everything. We want to know.

She's okay. Well, better than okay. There were a few times when I had to crack a whip over her head, to get her to understand how I feel, since she was just a military mom, not a military brat, so she has to work hard to understand my feelings, but she does now.

3. What are your feelings about this story?

I wish it never had to be told. Seriously. More than anything, I wish it had never happened, but it did, and now I'm dealing with it.

You see I used to define the worst moment of my life as the day when terrorists took over my kindergarten classroom. Things turned out mostly okay, but I refuse to talk about that. That didn't work, though. All the promises I got about it never happening again turned out to be so many words.

It did happen again.

4. How do you feel about being a character in this book?

Great! Looking back, I know I had a great life, well except for WWE, but she has her own problems to deal with now, and she's kind of forgotten all about me. That's sort of sad, but I don't have to put up with everything she used to do to make me feel bad about myself. All my friends gave me the best memories I've ever had, but I'm working on making even better ones now.

5. What do you see in your future? (No spoilers please!)

My future? Oh, you want to know about my future. (giggles) What I'm doing now, with two of the best friends I have. I'd love to say more, but you don't want spoilers, so I can't tell you how much fun I'm having. One day, I do want to go to college, but that won't happen for a while. It's still too hard to walk back into a classroom.

6. Is there another Take Chances in the future? Will you be part of it?

Probably not. We told you our story, the reasons why we are the way we are. I think it's good to leave things as they are, to let the reader envision the future.

7. Say a movie producer comes knocking. What actor/actress would you want to play you and why?

Movie producer? Did you say movie producer? Oh-em-gee! Wow! I don't know. Maybe. It would be kind of a good thing. I mean, there's not really a movie a whole lot like this story, but then again, it might be too sad for most people.

I don't think it's too sad. It's more like bad things happen, but then you have to make good things happen, and that's what I'm doing.

So, if the impossible happens, I'd want to see Nina Dobrev play me. Wasn't she total amazing in The Vampire Diaries? So cool!

Blurb:

Julie Bond grew up in Europe as a military brat. She found her very first permanent home in Landry, GA as a teen going into high school. Almost four years later, she's having pre-graduation jitters and flashing back to an incident of school violence she experienced in Europe. She attempts to convince herself that it can never happen again, but continually finds herself flashing back to that day no matter how hard she tries.

The people around her present any number of problems for Julie, and she's hard put to keep from drowning under all the issues. Then Michael--a cool guy she's had a crush on for the last three years—returns from traveling the US as a photographer, and Julie now has one more thing to distract her as she prepares to leave high school. One thing she firmly believes in: no one will ever invade her classroom with violence again.

Once again, the impossible happens. Once again, she's in a classroom with a madman holding a gun. Once again, she must survive.

Book Trailer

Teaser Excerpt:

Achtung!

The German word for attention echoes through my head as I sit in the last French class I'll ever take. In an instant, the comforting cream-colored walls of Landry High School vanish. I'm crouched under a table with tears streaming down my face. Three men and two women point huge, black automatic weapons at my classmates.

It's not real! I'm almost eighteen – not five.

Bio:

KC Sprayberry started writing young, with a diary followed by an interest in English. Her first experience with publication came when she placed third in a Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge contest while in the Air Force, but her dedication to writing came after she had her youngest child, now a in his senior year of high school.

Her family lives in Northwest Georgia where she spends her days creating stories about life in the south, and far beyond. More than a dozen of her short stories have appeared in several magazines. Five anthologies feature other short stories, and her young adult novel Softly Say Goodbye, released in 2012. During 2013, more young adult stories have been released: The Ghost Catcher, Who Am I?, Family Curse … Times Two, and Amazon Best Seller, Canoples Investigations Tackles Space Pirates.

You can find her on the web here:

Stick around for the full tour. Why? On September 26 through September 29, 2013, you can pick up my other YA coming of age books, Softly Say Goodbye and Who Am I? free on Amazon:

Softly Say Goodbye