Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway: Yesterday's Gone (Olympic Visa Chronicles #1) by Kelly Pawlik

Welcome to my stop on the virtual book tour for Yesterday's Gone by Kelly Pawlik. This book tour was organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. On my stop, I have an excerpt from the book as well as a helpful guest post from the author. There's also the tour wide giveaway for a chance to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card. Be sure to visit the other stops on the tour for more content. Enjoy!

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Title: Yesterday's Gone

Series: Olympic Vista Chronicles #1

Author: Kelly Pawlik

Publisher: Olympic Vista Publishing

Publication Date: July 1st 2021

Print Length: 156 pages

Genre: Young Adult Horror Science Fiction

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Book one of the Olympic Vista Chronicles novella series follows Darius and Adelaide as they explore a house rumoured to be haunted. What they find is so much worse.

An eager new kid, a deadpan music-lover, a fast-talking troublemaker, an anxious bookworm and a girl torn between popularity and adventure. Follow this group of friends as they delve into the mysteries of their small town while juggling the trials and tribulations of their home lives.

A tale of friendship, love, and coming of age (with a healthy dose of horror) in the late 1980s.

**The eBook is FREE during this tour!**

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EXCERPT:

“Thanks for waiting,” Adelaide said as she turned to survey the house. The windows were boarded up and the roof sagged. The grass was long and yellow from the summer weather. There was an overgrown garden under the large front window. Some of the pieces of plywood over the windows were covered in graffiti, but Adelaide couldn’t quite make the words out in the moonlight. She turned back to the others. “So, we just... go in?”

They all looked at each other, then wheeled their bikes to edge of the property and set them down. Adelaide noticed Darius glance at them before he set his bike on the yellow grass. She thought she could make out a kickstand on his bike. Adelaide peeled the tape off her flashlight, removed it from her bike, and stuffed it into her backpack.

For a long moment the five of them stood there, illuminated by the soft glow of the moon.

“This was already an adventure,” Kurt pointed out. “I mean, we could just––”

“We’re already here. I’m not afraid to go in,” Tetsu boasted.

“All right, then,” Darius replied. “Let’s go.”

“Kurt,” Adelaide said. “If you don’t want—”

Kurt moved first. He strode to the door and, after a second of hesitation, the others followed behind. Kurt reached out and grasped the handle. Then he turned it.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kelly Pawlik dabbled with story writing from a young age. She spent her childhood reading, dressing her beloved cat, Midnight, up in doll clothes and hunting garter snakes in the backyard. Her childhood dream was to be a writer and she is proud to have made her fiction debut with the Olympic Vista Chronicles novellas.

Kelly is a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) writer and has released multiple RPG supplements with her husband under their micro-publishing company, Dire Rugrat Publishing. She has also contributed to several best-selling works with Kobold Press.

Kelly lives on Vancouver Island, BC with her husband, their three inquisitive children, and two lazy cats.

Songs from the Wood, book two in the Olympic Vista Chronicles series, is available now. You can also purchase Costumes & Copiers, book three in the Olympic Vista Chronicles series, by clicking here.

FREE SHORT STORY: Sign up to receive Kelly's newsletter and get access to sneak peeks of upcoming novellas, behind the scenes information and other exclusive content. PLUS, you'll get “Snow Day,” a short story set in the Olympic Vista Chronicles universe, right away!

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GUEST POST:

- What Makes a Great Horror Series?

The Olympic Vista Chronicles are YA horror, so there are a lot of subjects they don’t touch on, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t scary. A friend of mine admitted she read the first book and was so creeped out she slept with the light on, but then a friend of my son’s read it and just loved the action and adventure. What one person finds utterly terrifying, another might scoff at.

A great horror series is a recipe that varies from author to author and book to book, but I think there are several key ingredients to get the ideal result.

1. Horror only works if you care about the characters. In media, written or visual, we’ve become accustomed to violence, gore, even death, but we know they aren’t real. Horror isn’t about some brutal, bloody murder. I mean, that’s horrific to a degree, but we aren’t invested as the reader.

When we care about the characters, our worry about what happens to them feeds into the suspense. The threat of the unknown somehow affecting our protagonist(s) is horrible. And it keeps us reading.

2. The second part of that is how much you see. I personally find the unknown to be scarier than the quantifiable. The creepy sounds from the basement or the ominous footsteps in the hall are more horrifying than a masked man at your window. Is the latter scary? For sure, it can be, but once we know what we’re facing, we start figuring out how to defeat or mitigate it. In great horror the threat isn’t a visible monster, it’s something intangible, or, even worse perhaps, something within ourselves.

3. How much it stays with the reader. I’ve read books that were, perhaps, scary in the moment, but I’ve long forgotten the plot and the book. There are some books though, even years later, I shudder at the thought of them. I may not even remember the whole book, but I know that something about it was unsettling. When I find myself recalling scenes or story threads from a book, and just can’t quite shake that feeling of unease, that’s a good piece of horror. Pulling it through an entire series is, of course, potentially more difficult. The Olympic Vista Chronicles all have a good touch of YA horror in them, but some of the books thus far veer more into sci-fi, and others more into action and adventure, or fantasy. I think the key is to still give the readers enough of what they’ve come to expect, while still keeping them on their toes.

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to horror, but I’d love to know, what are your favourite horror novels – and why? Do you think the three ingredient above are present in them?

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GIVEAWAY:

Kelly Pawlik will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

(All the Ups and Downs is not responsible for this giveaway, its entries, or the prize. Goddess Fish Promotions assumes all responsibility for this giveaway.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway