Girlfriends Cyber Circuit Presents Kelly Parra

The turn of seasons has finally come about. We don't seem to have a seasonal dimmer switch around here, where it gradually grows cooler. We just have an old-fashioned on/off switch. So we dropped something like 15 degrees in 15 minutes yesterday (I was monitoring the weather reporting station at the school down the street online). I went to the grocery store before lunch, and it was nearly 80 degrees and muggy. I went out to check the mail after lunch, and it was barely 60 degrees and nearly took my breath away. There was a rather large (relatively speaking) frog sitting on my front porch when I went out for the mail, giving this, "Whoa, what just happened?" look. It was truly an amazing frog. He was mostly a sort of grayish-green color, but had this wide stripe of bright, almost metallic or jewel-like green down his back. He really did look like a frog prince. All he was missing was a little crown, and if someone did kiss him and turn him back into his human form, he'd be wearing a bright green cloak.

I did not kiss him, though (perhaps that should go on my list of Reasons I'm Still Single: A frog prince appears on my front porch and I don't kiss him). I was planning to take his picture, but he was gone when I got back from the mailbox. I guess he took my advice when I told him he shouldn't be out in that weather.

While I continue plugging away at The Book That Will Not Die and That I Could Have Written War and Peace While I've Been Struggling With It, here's another Girlfriends Cyber Circuit guest appearance, Kelly Parra, author of the new book Invisible Touch.



Kara Martinez has been trying to be "normal" ever since the accident that took her father's life when she was eleven years old. She's buried the caliente side of her Mexican heritage with her father and tried to be the girl her rigid mother wants her to be -- compliant and dressed in pink, and certainly not acting out like her older brother Jason. Not even Danielle, her best friend at Valdez High, has seen the real Kara; only those who read her anonymous blog know the deepest secrets of the Sign Seer.

Because Kara has a gift -- one that often feels like a curse. She sees signs, visions that are clues to a person's fate, if she can put together the pieces of the puzzle in time. So far, she's been able to solve the clues and avert disaster for those she's been warned about -- until she sees the flash of a gun on a fellow classmate, and the stakes are raised higher than ever before. Kara does her best to follow the signs, but it's her heart that wanders into new territory when she falls for a mysterious guy from the wrong side of town, taking her closer to answers she may not be able to handle. Will her forbidden romance help her solve the deadly puzzle before it's too late...or lead her even further into danger?

Now, the interview:

What inspired this book?
I've always been interested in the paranormal and have encountered repetitious symbols and words during the same day. I wondered if there was a meaning behind them, if there was someone trying to tell me something. So that thought led me to the beginning of an idea for Invisible Touch. I was glad MTV Books went for the idea!

Do you have anything in common with your heroine?
Sadly, Kara loses her father suddenly as I did in my early twenties. Writing Invisible Touch was a way to deal with some of that bottled up grief. Kara is a blogger and I very much am. :) It was diffilcult for me to share my inner feelings growing up and Kara and I also have that in common.

Would you want to get insight into people's fates -- and if so, what info would you like to be able to see?
I think that would be a very scary thing! That's why the signs are a gift and curse for Kara. She is happy to save people from unfortunate fates if it is in her power, but at the same time its extremely stressful to deal with, especially when she only has her blog to confide in. I think if I could have an insight into people, I'd want to be able to see if people were trustworthy or not. :)

If you could start an anonymous blog and were guaranteed that no one would ever find out you wrote it, what would you write about?
I would probably write all the really hard stuff people deal with in life, but I'm afraid it would end up being a lot of whining. :) But I'd probably feel good to get a lot of it off my chest, so to speak.

What are you working on now?
I'm working on something different--a sci-fi YA. It hasn't been shopped yet but I'm hoping it will be something different in the eyes of a publisher.

Is there anything else you'd like to say about this book or the process of writing it?
I wrote this book with a lot of different feelings in mind. It has a mystery, romance, family drama and really I just want Invisible Touch to be entertaining to the reader.

For more info, visit Kelly's web site. Or order the book from Amazon.