Naomi MacKenzie’s Lodestones

Today I have the pleasure of Naomi MacKenzie’s company. She stops by for a crazy fun interview. I think her invention answer is my favorite. I might just hop a ride on that one too. When she’s not using it of course. Her brand new book Lodestones is out now and you won’t want to miss it. It sounds like a fabulous book. After the interview, read all about the book and an excerpt that will make you want to know what happens next. At the very bottom, enter for a chance to win an Interlude Press gift card or one of five copies of the book.

Amanda C. Stone: Good morning Naomi! I am so excited to have you here today.
Naomi MacKenzie: Hi Amanda! It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.
ACS: You are on a deserted island and can have only one book with you. What book would it be?
NM: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It never fails to make me laugh, no matter how many times I read it, and laughter would be hard to come by on a deserted island.
ACS: If a book can make you laugh over and over again, then you’re sure to not mind being deserted as much. There is magically 25 hours in a day. What would you do with the extra hour?
NM: I’m going to have to go with the most obvious and boring answer, I’m afraid: sleep. I’d love to say I would write for an extra hour, or some other productive endeavor, but I would probably sleep. That’s what I do when the time changes and we gain an hour.
ACS: Oh extra sleep! How I love it! If you could snap your fingers and have an invention to do anything you want, what would you want it to do?
NM: Teleport me anywhere in the world. Having a teleporter would enable me to see my family whenever I wanted, or visit friends in other parts of the world. Writing research would be a piece of cake as well. Writing about Prague or Paris or Karachi? Hang on, I’ll just pop over there for a few hours and hang out. I think I would be blissfully happy at all times if I had a teleporter.
ACS: That would be an amazing invention. I’d gladly use on as well. Moving wouldn’t be such a horrible thing anymore either with a teleporter. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
NM: Overlooking the sea. I’m not picky otherwise. I want to fall asleep and awaken to the sound of the waves, and the briny ocean smell.
ACS: I would love to live by the sea. The sound of the waves would be what drew me there as well. Great choice! If your house was on fire and you could grab only 3 things before leaving, what would they be?
NM: Assuming living beings aren’t counted here,
ACS: Yup, living things don’t count. They all can get out on their own.
NM: I would say: my phone, so I could call 911; my iPad with all my writing documents on it; and the external hard drive that holds all my photo files.
ACS: Can’t forget the hard drive with the photos! I think I’d die if I lost all of my photos. So many memories. Thank you so much for stopping by and answering my wild and whacky questions. I loved having you!

Blurb:
On the eve of a new school year, several groups of college students cross paths as they seek out a secret end-of-summer lake party—including Robin and Charlie, two inseparable friends who discover of the course of the twenty-four hours that their relationship is something much deeper than simple friendship.

Excerpt:
Larry holds up the flyer to study the map Florence drew. Barry is leaning to look at it, too, when it’s ripped from between Larry’s fingers.

A greasy man in a campus security uniform stands over them with a pinched expression. His faded nametag reads: Ron Anderchuk. “Another one,” he all but growls. “Where in heck did you get this, boys?”

Barry tries his best to look innocent. Which isn’t all that hard, since he knows nothing.

“Found it on the ground,” Larry lies.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” the security guy says. “Extra trouble for littering.” He glares hard at the paper for nearly a minute before looking back at them. “You do know parties like this are illegal, don’t ya, boys? And frowned upon by this here establishment.” He raps his knuckles on the table. “I think it best you stick around here this weekend. That would be best, don’t ya agree?” He widens his beady eyes while he waits for their assent.

Barry looks to Larry. Seeing him nodding, he mimics the gesture.

The security officer’s answering grunt sounds disbelieving. He mutters as he walks away; the flyer with their map is gripped in his fist.

“What are we—”

Larry holds up his hand, stopping Barry’s question in its tracks. “Not to worry; I have a photographic memory. I’ve got the map in here.” He taps a fingertip against his temple.

“Even after all of that? And we do have another problem, if Florence is to be believed.”

Larry hums and strokes his chin. He picks up Barry’s tray and they walk to the windows. The orientation officers are indeed spread across the entire expanse outside, handing out pamphlets and organizing games of lawn bowling and oversized croquet. The entrance to the student parking lot is completely blocked.

Barry should throw in the towel, admit defeat and convince Larry to do the same. And he would, if not for one thing. The one detail that has roped him into the excitement over the lake festivities fully and completely is Kate Zimmermann, captain of the Dicaroon Seadogs field hockey team. Barry was looking through the school’s website while Larry was plotting behind him and he caught sight of her picture. He informed Barry that she was one of the girls who was carrying the van’s bench seat into her dorm room and invited him to the party early that morning.

Barry is in love with Kate Zimmermann. He has been since seeing her on the Dicaroon University website the previous summer. Well, he’s in love with the image of her and her red hair and blue eyes and adorable freckles that are so voluminous that they connect on her face. He has dreamed of red-haired kids calling him Daddy and hitting balls with sticks. Possibly. And she’s throwing the party, so even if Barry will never get up the nerve to speak to her should he live for a thousand years, he has to go. For his future dream-wife.

“Well, then,” Larry says. He sets Barry’s lunch tray down on the bussing station and rubs his hands together. “I guess we are in need of a foolproof plan.”

“A stratagem,” Barry says. He feels immediately foolish for being such a huge dork.

But then Larry grins at him. “Ooh, yes, I like that. A stratagem.”

About Naomi:
Naomi MacKenzie is a writer and photographer from the eastern coast of Canada. She considers herself a Maritimer first and a Canadian second, or so she told the standardized testing people in essay form during the eleventh grade. She enjoys vegan baking, walks in the woods and, contrarily, hiding from the sun. Lodestones is her first novel.
Connect with Naomi MacKenzie at http://naomimackenzie.com/; on Twitter at @_naomimackenzie and on Facebook at Naomi MacKenzie.

Buy Links:
Interlude Press: store.interludepress.com
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1T9EI12
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/557390
Indiebound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781941530375?aff=InterludePress

Tour Stops:
8-Sep: Bayou Book Junkie, Mikky’s World of Books
9-Sep: Hearts on Fire, Boys on the Brink Reviews
10-Sep: Inked Rainbow Reads, Amanda C. Stone
11-Sep: Velvet Panic, MM Good Book Reviews
14-Sep: Wicked Faerie’s Tales and Reviews, The Novel Approach
15-Sep: BFD Book Blog, Book Reviews, Rants, and Raves, Prism Book Alliance
16-Sep: V’s Reads, Divine Magazine, Happily Ever Chapter
17-Sep: Wake Up Your Wild Side, Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words
18-Sep: Molly Lolly, Love Bytes
21-Sep: My Fiction Nook, Jessie G. Books, Vampires, Werewolves, and Fairies, Oh My

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