Summer Teen Reading Party with Guest Author Marva Dasef

Today, a little witchcraft comes to this blog. Magic happens when I switch blogs with Marva Dasef. She and her witchy character, Kat, have come for a visit with her latest book, Scotch Broom, while I am over on Marva's blog with my book, If I Could Be Like Jennifer Taylor.

Both of us are giving away prizes so read and comment as much as you can!!

Many of you were here for the wonderful interview for Marva's last book and now she has brought her main character, Kat, along with her. Before we meet Kat, let's learn a bit about Marva.

About Marva:

Marva Dasef lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and a fat white cat. Retired from thirty-five years in the software industry, she has now turned her energies to writing fiction and finds it a much more satisfying occupation. Marva has published more than forty stories in a number of on-line and print magazines, with several included in Best of anthologies. She has several previously published books. Her latest pride and joy is the Witches of Galdorheim Series from her super duper publisher, MuseItUp.

Hi Marva. Welcome to my blog and hope you make yourself at home. I know Kat has something she wants to tell us all. Before she tells us, let's find out more about your new book, Scotch Broom.

SCOTCH BROOM: Book 3 of The Witches of Galdorheim

A magical trip to Stonehenge lands a witch in the Otherworld where an ancient goddess is up to no good.

Blurb:

Kat expects to have a great time on her graduation trip to Stonehenge. However, from the moment she leaves the witches’ arctic island, Galdorheim, she gets in nothing but trouble.  Her younger half-brother tries to horn in on her trip, she gets lost in the magical Otherworld realm, is led astray by a supposed friend, then she has to confront a Scottish goddess who’s fallen on hard times.

While dodging the goddess’ minions and trying to find her way out of the Otherworld, Kat soon learns she shouldn’t underestimate the old has-been for one second; the crone still has a few tricks that can drain a witch’s magic in a flash. To make matters worse, Kat's brother secretly followed her into the Otherworld. Now he’s in danger too.  Kat has to go one on one with the goddess to save herself and her brother.

Kat’s Opinion About this Whole Mess

All I wanted is to have a nice winter vacation away from mom, Aunt Thordis, Rune, and (most especially) the bane of my existence, Merry. Is that too much to ask? 

It started out pretty well when mom made me a foldbox backpack that holds way more than it looks like it should. Rune laughed at me when I didn’t get when he said it was just like a Tardis. I asked him, what the heck is that? He didn’t answer, but just walked away laughing his fool head off.

Okay, so packing for the trip was handled. The Witches’ Council approved my trip to Stonehenge, and Aunt Thordis even suggested I fly Spirit, the ultralight plane, to Scotland. Why, you might reasonably ask, am I going to Scotland instead of heading straight down Norway’s coast, then popping across the North Sea to England? Trows. Yup, the Scottish cousins of the Scandinavian trolls we Galdorheim witches are friends with. Well, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ll just have to read “Bad Spelling,” the first book in the series of my adventures.

So my job was to deliver some letters to King Connor of the Highland Trows. No problem. I’m happy to be of service. I was waiting for the train south when I saw Rune standing on the platform. What the heck was he doing here? I know our mom wanted him to go visit his bio-father, so he should be headed for Transylvania, not standing on a train platform in Scotland.

After a short and heated discussion, I decided to deliver the messages to King Connor. I was so steamed at Rune horning in on my trip, I really didn’t pay to much attention to my surroundings. So I dug around in my bag to find the map when I found...no when I DIDN’T find the messages and map to the Trow Hall in my pack.

That dirty, rotten stinker of a witch, Merry, swiped the messages and the map, and put a black hex on me so I wandered into the Otherworld without even knowing it. L-O-S-T. In deep doodoo. Hung out to dry. 

The only thing I could do is try to find King Connor’s hall without the map. Do you know what the Otherworld looks like? No, you’d be wrong if you think pretty wonderland with flowers and cute fairies flitting around. It’s a swamp. A soggy, muddy, smelly swamp. Okay, not exactly all of it, but enough swamp for me to lose at least one shoe and get mud up to my, my, um, tuchis.

What I didn’t know made it even worse. The winter goddess, Cailleach, smelled me coming (okay, so I didn’t have a chance to take a bath) and thought I’d be a dandy way to score a little magic to bring her powers back. 

That’s enough back story. Rune just told me about the Tardis and Doctor Who, so I can honestly say ‛no spoilers’ and know what it means. If you’re a fan of the doctor, you’ll get it. Never mind if you’re not (you should be!).

Maybe we should read what Marva has written about you so we can learn more about why you feel this way.

Excerpt:

Kat hiked along without paying much attention to her surroundings, still steaming mad. She made up and discarded a dozen nasty replies to her brother. How dare he horn in on my trip? Every time she thought about it, she got angrier.

She looked around and stopped dead. She’d been thinking so hard about Rune’s interference, she hadn’t really noticed her surroundings.

“Oh, drat. Now where am I?” She looked out across an expanse of marshy land. Little ponds sparkled in the sunlight. Taking out The Travelers’ Guidebook to Scotland, she thumbed through to the section on the Highlands. These lands didn’t look very high, she thought. Matter of fact, what she saw before her were soggy, flat...bogs.

“The Flow Country! Well, this is a good thing. The Trow Hall is somewhere around here.”

Snapping her fingers, she shoved the guidebook back into her pack and thought about the packets from King Ole and King Olaf. She put her hand on the foldbox, waiting for the packets to come to her. She waited for a half a minute, but nothing jumped into her hand. What the—?

“Where are they?” She crouched and dropped the bag onto the wet earth. Opening the top as wide as she could, she peered into it. Maybe the kings’ letters got moved into the real world part of the bag. Starting to worry, Kat shoved her hand to the bottom and felt around for anything paper. She kept pulling out the guidebook. Maybe that was the map?

She stood and opened it again, turning to the page that mentioned the Flow Country. She examined a tiny map of the entire Scottish highlands, stretching from Wick to Scourie, from Cape Wrath to Dornoch. She tapped the map to zoom into the general vicinity of the marshes. It seemed they were much too far away from Thurso for her to have walked in less than an hour.

Something was definitely not right about this. She couldn’t be where she seemed to be. Kat reached back into her bag and got out the little binoculars she’d brought. She was glad her mother suggested them. “How can you be a tourist without binoculars?” She turned a three hundred sixty degree circle. Where she had been, some groves of trees dotted the landscape. She didn’t remember going through any woods.

She tried to think. What did she remember? A rough road strewn with rocks. A river. Did she cross a river?

Looking around, she found a lump of rock big enough to sit on. She sat and thought. And thought. But the harder she thought, the less she remembered about getting here from the train station in Thurso where she’d left Rune standing on the platform.

Now she was lost and her map to the Trow Hall was missing. Where—? Merry. Kat dragged her bag closer and reached in again, thinking about Merry. A piece of paper came to her hand. Pulling it out, she read:

Dearest Katty:

I hope you’re enjoying your trip so far. You’re reading this note because you figured out

that I took the letters to the trolls. So, no map for you, sweetie. The other teensy little problem

you’re having—being lost in the Scottish Highlands—will certainly let you work on your magic.

Good luck getting home again.

Cheers,

Your BFF Merry (Not!)

Kat’s stomach churned. Fear. She couldn’t believe Merry would go this far. Obviously, Merry cast some kind of spell to move Kat from civilization to wilderness. If this were a creek, she’d definitely be without a paddle. Since Merry was a witch, she could safely steal from the foldbox. Kat wished she’d never left her pack alone within Merry’s reach.

Kat scanned the Flow Country. Nobody lived out there. Too wet and boggy. A skittering sound drew her attention. A flash of something; then it was gone. “Must be a bird. I’m pretty sure I saw feathers.” She sent a thought to the bird but got nothing in return.

Okay, now I see why Kat is so angry! Wouldn't you be too if you were lost in a strange place? I really want to know if Kat will be able to get out of there and have the vacation she planned.

                                       !!    GIVEAWAY  !!

Leave a comment to win a free ebook of any of the Witches of Galdorheim. To win a GRAND PRIZE, read the posts carefully, then answer the easy quiz on Marva’s Blog at http://mgddasef.blogspot.com between May 27^th and 31^st. All the information and links you need will be posted.

Marva Dasef: https://sites.google.com/site/mdasefauthor/books/galdorheim 

MuseItUp Buy Link: http://tinyurl.com/ScotchBroomMGD 

Kindle Buy Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007ROH46K/ 

Scotch Broom Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYnRmbvPp7Q

Where to Find Marva Dasef:

MuseItUp Author Page: http://tinyurl.com/MIU-MarvaDasef 

Blog: http://mgddasef.blogspot.com 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/MarvaDasef 

Twitter Handle: @Gurina

Book Trailers: http://www.youtube.com/user/MarvaDasef/videos 

Now you need to leave a comment here to be in the big Giveaway. Then go over to see my post on Marva's Dasef's blog and leave a comment there to be in my Giveaway. 


Until the next time I will be appearing on Rebecca Ryalls Russell's blog on May 15th. I hope you are enjoying our Summer Teen Reading Party.