Blog Tour: Reaper by L.S.Murphy Guest Post

The Sock Monkey Cap

Writers can be a curious lot. We have quirks, superstitions, and little curiosities that would drive most people insane.


For example, I have a sock monkey stocking cap that I wear when I’m editing.

Seriously.

This is actually a newer thing that I developed over the past year. The sock monkey stocking cap was a gift for my daughter, Bean. Her aunt and cousin brought it back from merry-old England after a trip. Bean hates hats, caps, headbands, and sometimes even ponytail holders.

Nothing is allowed on my daughter’s head.

For some reason, my head was cold one morning last winter and the sock monkey cap was the only thing I could find. My basement is rather cold all year around, and that’s where my office is located. I tugged on the cap, cranked the solo piano station on Pandora, and set about editing my manuscript. After the manuscript was done, I started querying agents.

In June, I signed with literary agent Julia Weber.

Not long after that, as I worked fiendishly on edits for Reaper, I felt scatterbrained and unable to concentrate. I pulled on the sock monkey cap. The edits flew by at amazing speed. It didn’t matter that it was the middle of summer or that my head was getting hot under that silly cap, I wore it.

At the beginning of December, I started rewriting my latest manuscript. Bean, wise child that she is, walked up to me calmly with something behind her back. I glanced down at her and she started giggling. With the grin of someone far older, she brought the cap around from behind her back and handed it to me without a word.

Guess she knew I really needed it.

Author Bio: L.S. Murphy lives in the Greater St. Louis area where she watches Cardinals baseball, reads every book she can find, and weaves tales for teens and adults. When not doing all of the above, she tends to The Bean (aka her daughter), her husband and a menagerie of pets. “A Reason to Stay”, a contemporary romance novella, is available as of November 2, 2012. Reaper is her debut young adult novel and will be released on January 7th, 2013.

She is a co-rep for the Southern Illinois region of Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and a member of the St. Louis Writer’s Guild.

Links:
Blog: http://lsmurphy.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LSMurphy
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LSMurphyAuthor
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5046440.L_S_Murphy
Publisher: http://www.jtaylorpublishing.com/

Reaper Blurb: There’s no way sixteen year old Quincy Amarante will become the fifth grim reaper. None. Not over her shiny blue Mustang. Her Jimmy Choos. Or her dead body.

She’s supposed to enjoy her sophomore year, not learn about some freaky future Destiny says she has no choice but to fulfill.

It doesn’t take long for Quincy to realize the only way out of the game is to play along especially since Death can find her anyway, anywhere, anytime. And does.

Like when she’s reassuring her friends she wants nothing to do with former best friend Ben Moorland, who’s returned from god-knows-where, and fails. Miserably.

Instead of maintaining her coveted popularity status, Quincy’s goes down like the Titanic.

Maybe … just maybe … that’s okay.

It seems, perhaps, becoming a grim reaper isn’t just about the dead but more about a much needed shift in Quincy’s priorities—from who she thinks she wants to be to who she really is.