Once Upon a Twilight!: Blog Tour: Identified: The Maya Price Story | Faith A. Rice-Mills | Interview

Welcome to our stop on the Identified: The Maya Price Story written by Faith A. Rice-Mills. This tour is hosted by Xpresso Book Tours.

Interview with Faith A. Rice-Mills

OUaT: What do you do when you are not writing?

Read to/color with/ sing to/watch The Land Before Time over and over again with my daughter.
Spend time with my handsome husband.
Yoga
Devour books (I’m on the 5th installment of A Song of Ice and Fire. What are you doing to me, George R.R. Martin??)
Watching Boy Meets World with my sister. (No judging).
Coffee dates with my best friend
Hunt down and defeat my nemeses/save the world.

OUaT: Do you have a day job as well?

I do! I taught high school Spanish for six years (¿hablan ustedes español?) and will start a new career as a librarian in August. Fellow authors/ readers! I am looking for young adult books to put in my library.

OUaT: Do you ever experience writer’s block?

Yes! And I hate it. I spent the entire month of April staring at my computer, with glassy eyes and probably a little bit of drool coming out of my mouth. I absolutely could not figure out where to go with the next chapter of Burdened. Then, in May, I wrote three chapters. What the hell is that all about?

OUaT: What was your favorite chapter (or part) to write and why?

I really liked writing the chapter in Leonas’ dungeons. Though some of the stuff that went on down there is super creepy, it was fun to use my imagination to come up with it. I’m not crazy, I promise. (Or am I?) I also liked writing Lamar’s first person journal entry because I love him. J

OUaT: Did you design the cover?

I didn’t, but my sister did! Allow me to give you a little bit of background behind that cover. I told my sister I wanted something simple, but also something that represented Maya and her journey. Maya is talented at manipulating earth, so there is a seedling with roots and leaves on the cover of Identified. This also is a symbol for the start of Maya’s journey and self-discovery since the seedling is just beginning to grow.

OUaT: What project are you working on now?

I’m working on the second installment in the series, Burdened: The Maya Price Story. Check out my author Facebook page for excerpts!

OUaT: Do you have any advise to give to aspiring writers?

Always write stuff down! Always! Before I actually published my books, I would have these amazing ideas, but forget to write them down. Now, I write down whatever idea my strange brain invents. Sometimes, I tell Siri my ideas and she (he?) records it into my phone

OUaT: What do you do to unwind and relax?
(In no particular order)

Yoga
Happy hour with friends
Sit on my back porch/bedroom/couch and read.
Watch Parks and Recreation with my husband.
Work on my vampire-slaying skills.

OUaT: Tell us a bit about your family.

Let’s see. First of all, I’m the oldest of four. I have a younger sister and two younger brothers. My parents are wonderful and have been married for thirty-five years. Bit of history: they only knew each other for seven months before they got married. And they have been married thirty-five years! My parents have put up with quite a bit from four kids (like fighting over the number 44, singing at the table, kicking each other in the face with red boots, skipping Sunday School…)

How do I explain my family? We’re loud, but logical. “We’re from the country and we like it that way.” We’re music snobs. We make a big deal out of birthdays. We like to vacation at the beach. We really like sci-fi/ fantasy stuff like Star Trek and Lord of the Rings. My parents and siblings are truly my best friends, even though we may have driven each other a little bit crazy over the years.

Now that I am grown I have added a few people to my family. I married my best friend from high school/ junior high and we have a little girl. When they’re not home, I mope around the house wondering what to do with myself. We also have two dogs, Simon and Fitzgerald (named for F. Scott Fitzgerald and Paul Simon).

OUaT: Are your works based on someone you know or events in your life?

Maya’s hometown of Diamond, Texas is based on my hometown of Tarkington, Texas, though Tarkington is a little bit smaller. Though many of the characters are named after friends of mine, the only character in Identified based on a real person is Maya’s brother, Carl, who is based on a childhood friend of mine also named Carl. My friend Carl also liked to listen to obscure music, played the guitar, and was very good-natured. The vehicle he drove when we were in high school was an old hearse that he had painted purple flames down the side. Almost twelve years ago, Carl passed away as a result of a car accident, for which he was not at fault. Though it has been over a decade, I still miss him.

AUTHOR BIO:

Faith A. Rice-Mills is the author of Identified: The Maya Price Story and a handful of short stories. She moonlights as a Spanish teacher, but has wanted to be a writer since she wrote the poem “The

Jackowhipp’s Wail” as an eight-year-old. Her writer’s spirit resides somewhere between Narnia and Mount Doom, but her physical body lives in Texas with her family. Besides writing, she loves reading (and will take recommendations!), yoga, coloring with her daughter, and watching Parks and Recreation with her husband. She dislikes snakes, the word “literally,” and teaching double object pronouns in Spanish. She is currently working on Burdened, the second book in The Maya Price Story series and is writing whatever short story she has to get out of her brain.

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Maya Price is a typical eighteen-year-old girl without much going on in her life. Her biggest problems include getting ready to leave her hometown for college, figuring out how to avoid her ever-so-strange stepmother, and trying to muddle through her feelings for her best friend, Pete. Yet, on one of her last nights in her hometown, she and Pete are in a car accident. A stranger pulls Maya from the accident, leaving Pete behind, and takes her out of this world and into another dimension. Maya soon discovers that she has been taken to a dimension called Leets by a group of people that call themselves shifters. Shifters are of mixed human and onyx blood and have various abilities. These shifters are able to travel between dimensions and control the four elements (fire, earth, wind, water) and the five senses (sight, sound, smell, touch and taste). Their leader, Victoria, informs Maya that she, too, is a shifter and that she must choose to join them or risk being sought out by their greatest enemy, a shifter named Leonas.

Maya joins Victoria and her ragtag group of rebel shifters in Leets, where she is teamed up with a group of seven other shifters. Her new "teammates" include a street-smart girl named Luz, who is especially adept at controlling fire, her twin sister Espy, and a nervous boy named Lamar, who can manipulate sound better than any other shifter. Together, Maya’s team trains for the battle that will soon be inevitable.

However, Maya soon learns that her purpose is not to just move the earth or send water flying into the air. There are rumors of a hidden prophecy and that the prophecy mentions Maya by name. Supposedly, the prophecy says that Maya will one day have to choose a side and will be essential in bringing her chosen ally to power...

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Identified: The Maya Price Story by Faith A. Rice-Mills

The Maya Price Story series #1

Publication date: December 3rd 2012

Genre: YA Paranormal/Fantasy

Giveaway: One winner on this site will win an ebook copy of Identified: The Maya Price Story by Faith A. Rice-Mills. To enter to win the ebook from this site just leave your email address in the comments below with your first name. Giveaway ends 7/21 and its International. Once a winner is chosen, I will let you know via email that you won and to expect the ebook soon.

Then you will see the rafflecopter to enter to win the grand-prize giveaway for the whole tour and that's a signed copy of Identified. The grand-prize winner will be contacted by Xpresso Book Tours/Author. Good Luck!a Rafflecopter giveaway