Friday, February 13, 2015

THE JAGUAR STONES Blog Tour: Authors Guest Post & Enter to Win a SIGNED Set of the Books!


Hello & welcome to the next stop in the The Jaguar Stones blog tour! 
I'm so thrilled to have authors J & P Voelkel on Mundie Kids today, to talk about their new release. I'm even more thrilled to help support two fabulous authors who are apart of the #EgmontsLastList. After you read their guest post, you can read more about The Lost City, and enter to win a fabulous giveaway we're hosting today on the blog. 


ROLLING THE CREDITS
You'll see the names J&P VOELKEL on the covers of the Jaguar Stones books.
But, as co-author Pamela Voelkel explains, that doesn't tell the full story...

"Why can't we go to Disneyland like other kids?" grumbled our youngest daughter as she climbed the crumbling steps of yet another ancient pyramid. By the age of ten, she'd explored over forty Maya sites, from temples and palaces to cave systems and underground rivers. She'd eaten with Maya families, played with Maya children, visited Maya schools. She even manned a table for us on Archaeology Day at the Boston Museum of Science while we were presenting in the Theater.

Our three children were in the back seat when our rental car sank in the mud on a dirt road near the Guatemalan border. They helped us catch the frogs that were hiding in our hut and keeping us all awake with their croaking. And they all remember the day I forgot to pack breakfast for a dawn nature walk and offered them live termites instead. (They're very nutritious, honestly.)

No skills in the family go untapped. A niece with circus experience was persuaded to make a Maya king costume for us from scratch. Another niece's husband, a drama school graduate, wore it to make a book trailer. A third niece helps with website design. A sister-in-law who teaches middle school helps us to write lesson plans. Another sister-in-law proofreads our Spanish. Just about everyone else has sacrificed vacation days to come and babysit for us during book tours. Jon's dad even battled the TSA (and won!) to bring back a 12-foot-long blowpipe from Colombia to accessorize our Maya king costume.

Writing the Jaguar Stones books has literally taken a village. We live in a little town in Vermont, down the street from a bookstore and opposite a library. Before we had an agent or a publisher, our local booksellers and librarians spent hours critiquing successive drafts of our manuscript and giving us advice on everything from the publishing process to marketing to how to attract passers-by to your booth at conferences. (The answer is food.) Pretty much all the school age children in town (and many of the babies) own signed copies of our books. Our next door neighbour even slapped on some face paint and led the Old Home Day parade in our Maya king costume. 

Along the way, so many strangers have become part of the story. Archaeologists, tour guides, museum directors, astronomers, Maya elders: they've all been so generous with their time. And then there are the people you meet on book tours: booksellers, teachers, readers, other authors - so many have become good friends. Changing Hands bookstore in Arizona has hosted us so often that we've immortalised one of their booksellers in an illustration. (Tweet me and I'll tell you where to find him.) Two bookstore owners in New Orleans climbed levees and explored cemeteries with us in the middle of the night to help us find locations for THE LOST CITY. After we left New Orleans, a school librarian scoured the French quarter for the exact house and tree we needed for another scene. 

There are so many people to thank. I tried to list them all by name in the Acknowledgements for THE LOST CITY, but we ran out of pages. 

And now the Jaguar Stones series is finished. The research is over. Sure, there'll be another book, on another subject and, I guess, a whole other world of amazing new people to meet. But I'm not ready to move on just yet. I'm still replaying the last few years in my mind, remembering faces, reliving moments, basking in details.

Well, except for the termite breakfast. I'd rather forget all about that. If my kids will ever let me.

ABOUT THE BOOK

By: Jon and Pamela Voelkel
Published by: Egmont 
Released on: February 10th, 2015
Series: The Jaguar Stones, Book 4: The Lost City
 Ages 10 and up

The epic conclusion to the exciting Jaguar Stones series and a rip-roaring adventure into the heart of America!

With his parents in jail and the Maya Death Lords in possession of all five Jaguar Stones, fourteen-year-old Max Murphy is pretty sure that he'll never get to leave the rainforest. 

But the Lords of Death have a problem--a new king calling himself Great Sun claims to have the Jaguar Stones, too. And they want Max to prove the guy's a fraud. Or else.

Now, Max, and Lola, the mysterious girl who befriends him, are off on another wild adventure that will take them from Central America to New Orleans and up the Mississippi to the lost city at the heart of America's past.

But one thing Max should have learned after all of this dealings with the Death Lords -- they never keep their promises.

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
"Suspense and intrigue, human sacrifice, smuggling, and secret doors and escape routes through pyramids ensure that the novel, the first in a projected trilogy, is likely to win legions of fans."School Library Journal, starred review of The Jaguar Stones, Book One: Middle World

"This fast-paced action-adventure novel surpasses its prequel, and is filled with Mayan folklore and entertaining humor that will keep teen readers highly entertained. The End of the World Club is an easily recommended novel to pique the interests of adolescent readers in history and mythology."—The ALAN Review review of The Jaguar Stones, Book Two: The End of the World Book Club

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jon Voelkel grew up in Peru, Costa Rica, and Colombia, all the while dreaming of a boring life in suburbia. Eventually, having survived monkey stew, an attack by giant rats, and a plane crash in the jungle, he rolled up his hammock and decamped to Europe. 

Meanwhile, growing up in a sedate seaside town in northern England, Pamela Craik Voelkel was dreaming of travel and adventure. The pair met in London, where they both worked in advertising. They went on to help found an award-winning agency, for which Jon was named one of the fifty most creative minds in Britain by the Financial Times. 

The authors' first book in the Jaguar Stones series, Middleworld, was an Al Roker Book Club pick. The Voelkels now live in Vermont with their three children. You can visit them online at www.jaguarstones.com.

THE GIVEAWAY 

OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES

Enter to win a SIGNED set of THE JAGUAR STONES! 



The winner will receive the first three books in paperback form, and the forth, and newest release in hardcover form.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. ~ Anna Quindlen

Good children's literature appeals not only to
the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child.
~ Anonymous ~