Amazon Gift card Giveaway and Blog Tour: Interview with Liz Gruder author of Starseed

Starseed by Liz Gruder

Published: February 2013

SUMMARY: Kaila Guidry has always known she is different. When she meets Jordyn Stryker at school, she finds out just how different.
Jordyn was born and raised far from Earth, a starseed, one of six new students sent to Louisiana's Bush High to learn human ways. But Jordyn didn't count on meeting someone like Kaila.
When Kaila is pushed to her limit by high school bullying and cruelty, Jordyn awakens her to a new reality—and to love. But to prove herself, Kaila must look the other way as the real purposes of the starseeds unfold.
As the horrific plan behind the starseed visit to Earth moves inexorably forward, Kaila and Jordan, caught in an impossible love, must determine where their true loyalties lie.

Liz Gruder on goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/LizGruder
Liz Gruder on twitter: https://twitter.com/LizGruder
Liz Gruder website: www.lizgruder.com
Liz Gruder blog: http://lizgruder.tumblr.com/
Liz Gruder facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liz.gruder
WiDo Publishing: www.widopublishing.com
Amazon link to Starseed: http://www.amazon.com/Starseed-Liz-Gruder/dp/1937178293
(note: Starseed will be released on Feb. 5, 2013)

If you could have any superpower what would you choose?


While writing Starseed, I got to vicariously experience several “superpowers” as my protagonist is sixteen-year-old Kaila Guidry, who is half human and half extraterrestrial. But since Kaila was born and raised on Earth, she learns her “superpowers” through Jordyn Stryker, an ET she meets at school and falls in love with.

Jordyn is one of six ETs invading the high school. Their “superpowers” include:

-- Telepathy. ETs can read any human’s mind. This obviously has benefits and pitfalls. You would know what someone was thinking about you—both positive and negative. While telepathy makes Kaila close to Jordyn, it can also provide embarrassing moments. . . .

--Mind-screens. ETs can implant false “screen memories” to people to make them believe something happened, when really it was something entirely different. When Jordyn wants to spend time with Kaila and they are late to class, he makes the teacher believe Kaila fell due to high heels and hurt herself. The teacher sees a terrible bruise on Kaila’s leg when no one else does… .

--Mind scanning & downloads. ETs can scan human minds and download useful information. In Physics Class, the teacher instructs the ETs (while the rest of the students and Kaila are hypnotized) to go into Kaila’s mind and download her language so they can speak more naturally in school and not be noticed as so unusual.

--Time Freeze. ETs can freeze time and suspend humans in that moment. Highly beneficial if you choose to have a party with other ETs (who have never been to a party) in your home and send the adults to bed. When the party is over, the clock moves from the moment time was suspended with the adults unaware that a party ever took place right where they sit.

--Teleportation. ETs can teleport themselves to other physical places. On Kaila’s seventeeth birthday, Jordyn teleports Kaila to Egypt to see the pyramids as a special birthday gift.

--Inter-Dimensional Travel. ETs can travel across the universe through dimensional wormholes. They can also co-exist with you in another dimension, watching you, without you even knowing it. This obviously, again, has benefits and pitfalls and can prove downright creepy.

In Starseed, having superpowers means growing and learning to use these powers wisely. As in real life, if you use power only for selfish motives, there could be a backlash. While I’d like to be able to mind scan and download some brilliant people’s knowledge, I realize that would be cheating and I should learn the knowledge myself. So probably I’d choose Teleportation, because I have a tendency to be late! Fortunately, as a writer, I can access superpowers in imaginary worlds, any time… . ;-)

--Liz Gruder

Liz Gruder
As a youth, Liz Gruder saw a series of UFOs with her best friend while riding bikes. Ever since, she’s held a fascination for the stars. An avid reader, she used to hide under her covers and read with a flashlight. She has degrees in English and Psychology from Tulane University, a nursing license and a yoga certification. After going through Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Liz realized how short life is and is now slowly fulfilling her bucket list: she’s been to the Egyptian pyramids (totally awesome and thought provoking) and is now teaching yoga and writing speculative fiction. Starseed is her debut novel.


Giveaway: 

$25 amazon gift card giveaway

Starseed Praise:
"You know from the opening paragraph that something very strange is going on… We see Kaila try to live the life of a normal teen, and we see her "otherness" pull her back into an increasingly tangled web of questions, deceit, and hidden intentions. Liz really shines as a writer, lining the closets and drawers of everyday life with spine-chilling suspense that springs out at you when you least expect it. Starseed is an entertaining read. I highly recommend."
--Patricia B. Smith. Author “What the Animals Tell Me” and “Fifty Shades of Santa” (clean romance fiction)

"Liz Gruder’s characters come alive through youthful, spunky narrative, and her headstrong heroine, Kaila Guidry, elicits a reader’s encouragement from the first page. Fans of Amanda Hocking will find themselves similarly transported into Gruder’s exploration of the dark sides of faith, love, higher dimensions, and, of course, high school." --Jadie Jones, young-adult fantasy author