Welcome to the 2-week blog tour for Goth Girl, Virgin Queen by JoAnne Keltner.

Follow the tour and connect with bloggers, read reviews of the book, read guest posts, and meet the author.

Book Information:

Title: Goth Girl, Virgin Queen

Author Name: JoAnne Keltner

Genre(s): Young Adult Paranormal

Length: Approx. 298 pages

Release Date: December 3, 2015

Publisher: Solstice Publishing

(http://solsticepublishing.com/)

Tour Schedule:

https://saphsbookpromotions.blogspot.com/2017/10/goth-girl-virgin-queen-book-tour.html

About Goth Girl, Virgin Queen:

Calling Jackie Turov psychic makes her cringe. But Jackie’s no normal seventeen-year-old. She picks up emotions from people and objects like a freak. The emotions make her sick, and the guilt she feels for lying to her church when she was twelve causes her to deny her psychic abilities.

So Jackie goes goth to make others stay away from her and forget her past. But her past is soon resurrected when her jealous friend Trish invites a demon, a persecutor of healers, to steal away Jason’s love for Jackie. The demon causes Jackie to be bullied for the lie she told and puts her best friend, Jason, in danger.

Jackie must learn how to use her gift to protect Jason and herself and to heal the negative energies of those around her. To do so means she must overcome her guilt and accept who she is before the demon claims her soul.

Enter the Goodreads Giveaway (ends October 31, 2017)

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/252425-goth-girl-virgin-queen

Read an Excerpt:

The medicine cabinet mirror—dotted with rust and turning gray—made the powder foundation on Jackie’s face look ashen and her jet-black hair, blurry. She looked like a shadow of a girl. She smeared black lipstick on her lips and shook out her shoulder-length hair. Her straight-cut bangs veiled her mascara-lined eyes, and the layered ends of her hair stuck out in defiant wisps.

Some of the kids at school—the ones she didn’t hang out with—called her Goth Girl. Some, whose memories wouldn’t die, called her VQ for Virgin Queen.

Jackie preferred Goth Girl, to be one of the living dead, to be numb to the emotions that plagued her. But this was what she wanted, not what she got.

Goth Girl or Virgin Queen, she was a freak, absorbing the emotions around her like a sponge. Sometimes the emotions made her sick. Sometimes they made her see things.

Because of this, she kept to a tight-knit group of goth friends—Jason, Zeta, and Trish—and avoided social activities. She attended high school only because Mom wouldn’t let her homeschool. Mom was afraid she’d hang with Babu all day, making piroshki and doing needlepoint instead of studying. Jackie, afraid of what life offered a freak like her beyond high school, had to admit that hanging with Babu all day was tempting.

Typically, Fridays were movie nights for Jason and her, but tonight would be different. Tonight, she’d subject herself to a hodgepodge of emotions from crowds and rides and the very ground she’d walk on to protect Jason. For this, she would need physical and spiritual strength, which she sought from Babu these days.

Babu’s door was cracked, and Jackie slowly pushed the door open. “Babu?”

The room smelled of beeswax and down. A candle burned on the shrine on the dresser. The flickering flame animated the icon of the Virgin of Vladimir and cast shadows across the picture of Babu, Grandma, Mom, and Jackie. Although Babu didn’t speak English, and Jackie didn’t understand much Russian, Jackie knew Babu kept that picture on her shrine to pray for Grandma, who passed away several years ago; for Mom, who divorced Dad; and for the girl who saw the Virgin when she was twelve—for the girl she had become as a teen.

Babu sat in bed, a country quilt spread over her legs, her thumb pressed against a knot of her prayer rope, her head bowed sleepily, and her lips wording prayers.

“I wanted to say goodbye,” Jackie whispered.

Babu crossed herself and then smiled at Jackie, her gold eyetooth shining from the light of the bed-stand lamp. She patted the empty space beside her. “Sadees.”

Jackie sat down beside Babu at the edge of the bed and took Babu’s hand in hers. Babu’s hand was warm and knotted with arthritis. Jackie rubbed her thumb over the bumps on Babu’s knuckles; her black fingernails were a sharp contrast to Babu’s flour-white skin.

She wasn’t afraid to touch Babu’s hands and absorb her emotions. Jackie got a good feeling from her. Babu filled Jackie’s inner vision with white light. She renewed her spirit. And this is what Jackie needed for the commitment she had made for tonight.

“Kooda eedyosh?” Babu asked.

“I’m going out,” Jackie said as if Babu understood her. This is how they communicated: Babu telling her stuff she couldn’t understand, Jackie telling Babu stuff she couldn’t understand. Somehow they carried on fine this way.

“Eedyosh sdroozyamee?”

“I’m going with Jason.”

Babu rubbed the top of Jackie’s hand and ran her thumb over black fingernails. “Fsyevo kharoshevuh,” she said in a comforting tone and gently squeezed Jackie’s hand. Then she cupped her hands around Jackie’s jaws and pulled her forehead to her lips. Jackie imagined Babu’s kiss imprinted on her forehead and carrying Babu’s blessings and love with her tonight.

Book Links:

Amazon http://amzn.to/2yx3uCH

Solstice Publishing: http://solsticepublishing.com/goth-girl-virgin-queen

Meet the Author:

Excerpt

Some of the kids at school—the ones she didn’t hang out with—called her Goth Girl. Some, whose memories wouldn’t die, called her VQ for Virgin Queen.

Jackie preferred Goth Girl, to be one of the living dead, to be numb to the emotions that plagued her. But this was what she wanted, not what she got.

Goth Girl or Virgin Queen, she was a freak, absorbing the emotions around her like a sponge. Sometimes the emotions made her sick. Sometimes they made her see things.

Jackie Turov of Goth Girl Virgin Queen Guest Post

Meet seventeen-year-old Jackie Turov of Goth Girl Virgin Queen. Jackie hangs with a tight-knit group of goth friends: Jason, Zeta, and Trish. She especially loves hanging out with her best friend Jason, enjoys their routine—caffeine buzz at the coffee shop, snacks and loitering at the pharmacy, movies at her house on Friday nights. On weekends she works at Photo Junction, and her favorite comfort food of all is the mocha frappé with tons of whipped cream. But Jackie’s no ordinary teen. When she’s not with Jason, she’s usually spending time with her great grandmother, needle pointing, helping her cook, recouping in her healing light. She attends high school only because her mom won’t let her home school, and she avoids crowds whenever she can. You see, hiding behind her goth attire and make-up and her semi-normal life is a girl with psychic abilities and a huge guilt-trip about having them.

Jackie picks up people’s emotions just by being near them. Her empathic ability is the most crippling for her because she absorbs emotions into her body. This makes her sick, especially when the emotions are negative, such as toxically hateful or unbearably sad. Sometimes, she can’t distinguish if the emotions are her own or someone else’s. She also picks up emotions and information through touch. This information tells her things about the past and about the present. The objects she is most susceptible to are objects that have been affected by traumatic events.

If you ask Jackie if she’s psychic, she’ll most likely deny or downplay her abilities, saying, “I’m just really sensitive to everyone’s emotions. All I do is piece the impressions I pick up together like a jigsaw puzzle. They tell me things about a person’s past and about the present.” Jackie does her best to keep her distance from others just so she doesn’t have to deal with the effects of her so-called “gift.” Because Jackie is so guarded, I thought it would be interesting to dig deeper into her character by asking her some really personal and sensitive questions. Here is what she said:

1.) What trait do you like most in yourself?

I haven’t really thought about it before. I guess maybe that I don’t judge others—at least I try not to. Although, that’s kind of easy for me as an empath, knowing how others are feeling.

2.) What trait do you hate most in yourself?

My so-called gifts—okay I’ll say it—my psychic abilities. Totally ruined my life. My great grandma quit going to church because of it. My grandma died of a heart attack not long after my psychic church incident. My dad left me and my mom because of all the attention I got.

3.) Do you ever lie?

No, of course not ... ugh, yes. But only to protect others. Like when I had my first psychic vision (in church!) and Father Dmitriev accused me of being possessed. I was so afraid he’d throw my grandma and great grandma out of church for good, that I lied about my vision, saying that it was a sign from The Virgin. If you read my story, you’ll know how that turned out.

4.) What trait do you value most in your friends Trish, Zeta, and Jason?

I like that they’re not afraid to be themselves and that they’re open and honest with me.

5.) What’s the best thing that ever happened to you?

Becoming friends with Jason. He accepts me as I am. He makes the guilt I carry for my lie and for the way I am more bearable.

6.) Have you ever been in love?

I don’t really know. Insane, right? But I tend to not trust my feelings, as I often pick up other people’s emotions. It’s hard for me to tell which emotions are truly my own.

7.) What do you fear most?

Besides having my church lie discovered (I don’t want to ever have to relive that ordeal), ironically, I fear being alone for the rest of my life.

8.) What is your idea of ultimate happiness?

Being normal. Not having people talk about my past or speculate about my true nature.

JoAnne Keltner is the author of Goth Girl, Virgin Queen (Solstice Publishing, 2015) and Obsession. As an only child and avid daydreamer, she spent hours alone in her backyard on the South Side of Chicago, which she imagined to be everything from an alien planet to the Antarctic. She currently lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband, four dogs, cat, and three chickens. When she isn't writing or freelance editing, she's obsessively streaming popular TV shows.

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