by LaylaMessner
Release Date: November 13th 2015
Summary from Goodreads:
The living crystals that feed elemental power to Atlantis are
exhausted. They give and give, but the Altantians just want more energy to fuel
their magical city. Sixteen years ago, the crystals came up with a plan to make
it all stop, a plan that revolves around three teens:
KALIOPE is a soulsinger, an empath with the power to sing the
souls of the dead to their next lives. She just wants to grow up, but her
mother won't let her.
DANICA is Kaliope's whipping girl. She gets punished whenever Kali
disobeys.
CHIARAN is a firestarter, so reckless even his family considers
him a monster.
When Chiaran arrives in Atlantis, he's the first fire person to set foot on the island in a hundred years. Kaliope naturally considers him an enemy and uses the last of her depleted power against him. But the battle reveals that the two have more in common than anyone could have guessed.
Anyone, that is, except the crystals.
Three teenage antiheroes, a bisexual love triangle, and an island
about to sink.
Overwhelm is a darkly sensual fairy tale about growing up against
all odds.
Buy Link:
Amazon
Revenge of the Awkwardly Sensitive Teen Girl
Guest Blog by Author Layla Messner
“The truly creative mind in any field is no
more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To
[her]… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy
is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god...” - Pearl S. Buck
I was a…sensitive
teenager.
To say high school
made me awkward would be a massive understatement. I wasn’t merely awkward. If
you had come to my school looking for the Queen of Awkwardville, you would have
found me, wearing all black, with my hair pulled back in a severe braid.
Forget about dating
boys; I couldn’t even smile at one!
When my friends
started holding parties that included—*gulp*—dancing with guys, I spent those
parties staring at the wall as if it were the most fascinating thing in the
world and refusing to look away from it, no matter what boys did to attract my
attention.
I once attended a Boy
Scout camp—guys everywhere, ahh!—at which I earned myself the nickname, “The
Wall”, because nothing a boy did could make me react.
This was less because of
self-control and more due to terror. I was sexually abused as a child and
pre-teen and though I, like many sexual abuse victims, forgot the abuse pretty
much as soon as it happened, my body always remembered.
Teenage guys terrified
me, and my terror made me awkward.
But what they say
about the geeky girls is true, you know; we do grow up to be bombshells.
I know. I did.
Oh, don’t get me
wrong. I’m still awkward. The other day, I fell headfirst and backward off my
lawn chair. I wasn’t trying to attract the attention of
the muscular, tattooed man across the pool, but I certainly did. When he came
over to make sure I was okay, he told me how adorable I was.
Let’s translate that
into a simple equation:
Awkward = Adorable
Awkwardness is sexy. Why?
Because awkwardness is vulnerable.
Vulnerability is the
hottest trait out there, because it means you can be touched, really
touched, to the core of your being.
The only reason nerdy
girls don’t get all the dates in high school is because teenage boys don’t have
mature eyes. They don’t have enough experience to know who’s really going to be
the best date.
Most teenage guys—and
if you’re a guy reading this, you’re probably the exception, and I’m
impressed!—most teen guys only know how to look with their physical,
mass-media-influenced eyes.
They haven’t yet
discovered the eyes of their soul, the eyes that see true beauty and sensuality
and connection.
They will. Guys grow
into geeky girls.
It’s a pain waiting,
though. I know that first hand. I suppose that’s one reason I wrote the
characters in my novel, OVERWHELM, the way I did— With a sensitive and popular
female protagonist, who has trouble letting in love; and a wild, masculine
leading man who can’t get enough of her.
Another reason is…well,
revenge.
Cynthia Ozick said,
“One reason writers write is out of revenge. Life hurts; certain ideas and
experiences hurt; one wants to clarify, to set out illuminations, to replay the
old bad scenes and [say] the words one didn't have the strength or ripeness to
say when those words were necessary for one's dignity or survival.”
Being an author of
teen fiction gives me a second chance to speak up about the truths I wish I’d
been able to verbalize in high school. Truth such as...
Creativity is sexy.
Sensitivity is a
superpower.
Deep people have deep
sex, and deep sex is the hottest sex there is.
So this goes out to
all you awkward-hot ladies, young or old…
You are adorable! Own it!
Láyla
Messner is a young-adult author and the founder of ChrysalisSanctuary.com for
healing childhood sexual abuse. She has an M.A. in embodied writing from
Goddard College and her novels provide New Sexual Mythology for teens. She
believes that love is real. She does not believe in unsolicited advice or the
word "impossible."
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