For anyone wondering when I might be writing a new YA book then the answer is now! I’m working slowly along on Emo Traders, and I’m going to share some of the intro with you. It will take a while to get this written because I have other book contracts, but it’s in the works …. never fear!

Emo Traders

The doorman’s teeth are like daggers. Sharp. Pearly.

He lets us in to the club. Sammie and me. Our first time in Dusk City.

We get drinks and watch the dancers.

I feel sick, shivery, frightened to be here.

But a dare’s a dare…

Dusk Quarter

There’s a side to the city called the Dusk Quarter – a place of whims and dark fantasies. The entrance to it lurks behind doors, down alleys, on darkened roofs.  Ordinary citizens get one free pass to visit Dusk. After that, if they wish to enter they must leave a part of themselves with … the Emo Traders…

From Goodreads…

“In Forsaken: Riley has always wanted to be a Demon Trapper like her father, and she’s already following in his footsteps as one of the best. But it’s tough being the only girl in an all-guy world, especially when three of those guys start making her life more complicated: Simon, the angelic apprentice who has heaven on his side; Beck, the tough trapper who thinks he’s God’s gift, and Ori, the strikingly sexy stranger who keeps turning up to save her ass. One thing’s for sure — if she doesn’t keep her wits about her there’ll be hell to pay …

In Forbidden: Riley’s beginning to think being a Demon Trapper isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Her dad’s been stolen by a necromancer, her boyfriend’s gone all weird and she’s getting warm and fuzzy feelings for someone who’s seriously bad news. It’s tempting to give it all up and try to be normal, but that’s not an option. Because the demons have plans for Riley. And they’re not the only ones.”

There has been so much going on in my life lately that I’ve been finding the reading zone to be a little more difficult to settle into. The size of this omnibus had me quaking in my boots and I thought it would take weeks for me to get through. This is NOT the case!

I was grumpy most mornings when I had to leave the book at home, and not take it to read on the bus, because of the weight it would add to my already loaded bag. I was able to get into the zone, stay there and even dream about what I thought would be happening in the next chapter. To be honest I don’t know how I managed to not have pasta sauce stains all through the book, because I was picking it up every chance I had.

We’ve had an influx of angel stories in the last 2 years or so. This is another one, but it holds it’s own. The blurred lines between good and evil are still driving us all mad and the characters are swept up in the rip tide of action and adventure, in turn so are you as a reader. Which is just what I needed.

I think I want a Magpie demon for my own personal needs! Ever tried to find the back of your earring when you’re running late for the walk to the bus stop? It’s such a pain in the butt.

I need to go exploring to see if book 3 and 4 are in omnibus format as well, because there is just something special about not having to close the cover to get to the next instalment of awesome in a separate book.

Jana had me confused as to whether I wanted to cry or throw the book, and I have been craving hot chocolate like nobody’s business, thanks to our main character Riley.

Romance, action, kick ass girls and strong stoic guy friends round out the impressive set list you can expect from these two glorious novels.

Start reading this in the morning of a day when you have nothing urgent to be done. You will be hooked.

http://www.janaoliver.com/

Paperback, 864 pages

Published July 4th 2013 by Macmillan Children’s Books

ISBN: 9781447241744

Sometimes when baking, everything goes to plan. And sometimes it doesn’t. This recipe was one of those doesn’t times…but that doesn’t necessarily mean disaster.

 I got this recipe for creaming soda cupcakes from a friend via the internet. ‘Ooh,’ I thought. ‘Everyone loves creaming soda. I might be able to tweak and change this recipe and make something really amazing.’ Little did I know just how much I’d have to tweak and change. But the end result? AMAZING.

What you need – CUPCAKES:

• 2 cups of Kirks brand creaming soda (ok, confession time. I didn’t use Kirk’s brand like the recipe told me to. This could have been where things went wrong, but I can’t be sure).
• 150g unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 cups of self raising flour
• 2 large eggs

How it’s done:

Sift the flour and sugar into a large bowl and put aside. Melt butter in the microwave and whisk with the eggs in a second bowl. Add the creaming soda to the butter and egg mix.

Make a well in the middle of the flour and pour in the egg/butter/creaming soda. Gently fold the mixture together. Pour into cupcake liners and bake for 10 to 15 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.

All good, right? Wrong. My cupcakes were more like pancakes. They didn’t rise at all. I double checked – yes, I used self raising flour. Next time, I’ll add some baking powder as well. But, how to save this batch when the cupcake cases were only 2/3 full?

Jelly. Creaming Soda flavoured jelly. Oh, yeah!

What you need:

1 packet of Aeroplane Jelly ‘Create-a-jelly’.

1 cup of boiling water

200 ml of creaming soda.

How it’s done:

Aeroplane Jelly make this awesome Create-a-jelly that can be found in the supermarket alongside the flavoured stuff. Create-a-jelly allows you to make any flavour you desire. Just add your favourite fruit juice, soft drink, iced tea, cordial…

Anyway, I just happened to have a pack in the pantry, and made up a batch according to the instructions (dissolve the Create-a-jelly with the boiling water, then add the creaming soda) in a shallow jug and popped it into the fridge for an hour, until it was about half set but still pourable. Then I topped up the flat cupcakes with the jelly mix and put them back in the fridge for another two hours.

Fairy Floss Decoration:

What you need:

1 x Betty Crocker ready-made vanilla frosting.

Pink and blue food colouring

1 x small container of blue and pink fairy floss.

…because too much sweet stuff is never enough, right? I spooned around 3 tablespoons of frosting into two separate bowls and tinted one pale pink, and one pale blue. Load up your piping bag with one teaspoon of each colour at a time – one spoon pink, one spoon blue, one spoon pink… Then pipe a simple swirl onto the top of each jellied cupcake. Carefully add a little fairy floss for decoration, trying not to handle it too much to keep that flossy look.

The end result was all round ‘WIN’ so far as my family of taste-testers went. The texture of jelly with cake and fairy floss was gorgeous. Very, very sweet – but gorgeous. I might just make this mistake again…

** A word of caution – don’t add the fairy floss until you’re just about to serve up. It tends to melt at air temperature.

Sam is over-tired, having been kept awake by recurring and steadily worsening nightmares. His science teacher, Mr Cole, who always seems to push Sam harder than anyone else, is disappointed in him. And annoyingly perfect Xavier Dark is all too happy to answer the questions that Sam can’t quite get. It seems like any ordinary day at school.

All of that changes when a helicopter lands on school grounds and armed men storm the building, looking for Sam in a matter of national security. Whisked away from his home and everything he has ever known, Sam finds himself caught up with two other people his age. A boy named Alex and, Eva, a girl who mysteriously knows more about their situation than either of the others.

If Sam is going to survive, he is going to have to work out who his friends are, and come to terms with the fact that his family may not be who they appear to be.

Thus begins the first novel in The Last Thirteen series. It’s fast-paced and action-packed with a premise that I’m sure we’ve all wished that we lived. What if our dreams could reveal our future? What if they could change it? Sam is used to nightmares, having battled them every night since his best friend died. Now he is told that there is more to his dreams than he could have imagined. Saved from the frightening Enterprise, an organisation devoted to exploiting Dreamers for financial gain, Sam is told that not only is he a Dreamer with the ability to see the future, he may be one of the Thirteen. One Dreamer, of the legendary thirteen, who will be strong enough to take a stand against the powerful Solaris in the final battle for earth.

While this is touted at being a young adult novel, I’d recommend it for a slightly younger age group. With the fascinating premise and likeable mix of characters, it’s a fantastic book for reluctant readers. The writing is simple but serves its purpose and the description is pared back to allow the action to flow along more quickly.

For avid readers who are older, this slim volume may not suffice, especially given the cliff-hanger ending that arrived far too quickly for my liking.

Book one of The Last Thirteen is a bit of a roller-coaster ride. Over too quickly and leaving you wanting more. I’d recommend it to anyone who had enjoyed the Conspiracy 365 series, and any 10-15 year old reluctant reader.

The Last Thirteen – James Phelan

 Scholastic (September 1, 2013)

 ISBN: 9781742831848

With only a few weeks until Halloween, I thought this would be a good time to share some of my favourite – but kind of gruesome – recipes for your Halloween party. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting both sweet and savoury recipes of the very dark kind, along with others of the more cheerful kind (unless you have an aversion to fairgrounds and clowns, that is…)

Today we’ll kick things off with Glass Shard Cupcakes. As usual, I’ve used a few ‘cheats’ where possible.

What you need:

1 x chocolate cake mix. I used White Wings brand.

1 x Betty Crocker vanilla frosting.

1 x packet of clear Isomalt Sticks – available from any cake decorating suppliers or online.

1 x Red Queen brand ‘Writing Icing’. Comes in a pack of 4 tubes, available at the supermarket.

Black food colouring.

How it’s done:

Make up a batch of chocolate cupcakes according to the packet instructions. Allow to completely cool.

Isomalt Glass Shards:

I use the ‘Cake Play’ brand of Isomalt sticks. It’s meltable, mouldable candy. It can be coloured as well as flavoured, but for this recipe I used it straight. It’s brilliant for so many different decorating ideas, but especially candy glass. A little on the expensive side at around $15 for a packet of 12 sticks, so it’s worth trying to catch them on special or online. Using Isomalt is a bit daunting at first, but, like working with chocolate, once you get the hang of it, a whole new world of ideas is opened up to you.

Prepare a flat surface with a large sheet of baking paper.

For this recipe, I used 6 Isomalt sticks. Snap each stick into 2 or 3 pieces, and add to a microwave safe container. I use a coffee mug because it has a handle and this stuff gets HOT. *Don’t even think about sticking your finger in there!*

In increments of about 10 seconds at a time, melt your Isomalt in the microwave, until it’s completely liquefied and bubbling. Since each microwave is different, the time could vary. Give it a good, quick stir with a metal spoon. Working very quickly – Isomalt hardens again fast – pour the candy mixture onto your baking paper and smooth out as thin and smoothly as possible in large pieces. Don’t panic if you get a few lumps or bumps. If you find the candy in your cup has hardened too quickly, just zap it back in the microwave for a few seconds.

Your ‘sheets’ of melted Isomalt will be completely hard again in about 5 or 10 minutes (depending on room temp). Place another sheet of baking paper over the hardened candy, and with the heel of your hand, press down and crush carefully. It’s the best way to get bigger pieces. Lift from your baking paper and put aside in a bowl.

*Isomalt clean up is with hot water and elbow grease.

Decorating:

Ice your cooled cupcakes with the pre-made vanilla frosting. This stuff saves a crazy amount of time and is DELICIOUS. Then, stick shards of candy glass into the cakes, making sure you use some smaller pieces as well as large ones. Try not to make this bit too even – a more haphazard style works better here.

To make up the ‘blood’, I squeezed about half a tube of the red ‘Writing Icing’ into a tiny shot glass. It’s too thick to use directly (we want the blood to drip and ooze) so I added a few drops of warm water. Unfortunately, this made the colour too bright – easy fixed with a single drop of black food colouring. The end result was a colour and texture very close to the real thing. I used a chop stick to both mix the ‘blood’ and also to drizzle it over the glass, as well as a few well-placed drops on the plate for effect.