Today we're doing a very special book promo for Katie Hayoez and her book:
Untethered
Sixteen-year-old Sylvie isn’t comfortable in her own skin. In fact, there are times she can’t even manage to stay inside it. But if there is one thing she’s sure of, it’s her love for Kevin Phillips. She’s willing to stake everything on it –her family, her friends, and possibly her soul.
Sylvie has been best friends with Cassie forever. But everything is turned around when the boy Sylvie’s loved since fifth grade falls for Cassie. Devastated, Sylvie intends to get Kevin by any means possible, even if it involves treachery, deceit, and the dark side of astral projection. She is positive her plans will give her what she wants, but she doesn’t count on it all spiraling out of control.
Finalist in the Mslexia novel competition, Untethered by Katie Hayoz explores the intoxicating and dangerous world of jealousy and obsession when coupled with paranormal ability. It is a touching, sometimes funny, sometimes heart-breaking novel that speaks to the self-doubt lurking in us all. 
Today, Katie is doing a guest post for us focusing on paranormal! Let's hear what she has to say.
Paranormal Activities: Guest Post by Katie Hayoz, author of Untethered.
I stood at the curb, watching the garbage truck’s process down the block, waiting for it to come near. At my feet were Hefty bags full of trash and a thin box. Inside the box was a Ouija board. I wanted to see the garbage men pick it up, throw it into the truck’s huge jaws. I wanted to be sure that board was wrecked and out of my life.
Three weeks earlier when I had bought it, I was thrilled. I couldn’t wait to play around with it, to contact the spirit world with my friends. Thing is, when it worked – when the triangular piece that guides the user to different letters actually moved on its own – I freaked. There was no sinister message and no items flew around the room, but I felt something. Something dark. And the days that followed, every time I would look at the Ouija a sick sensation gurgled in my stomach. I knew I had to get rid of the thing I’d wanted so badly.
That experience sums up my relationship with the paranormal. I find it fascinating. Intriguing. But the second I get up close, fear takes over and I shut everything out. Yet here I am, writing novels with a paranormal edge.
The writing is fun. It’s the research that can be freaky.
Mostly, I read books and scour the internet. And I suppose I could stop there since what I write is fiction. But I’m drawn to the “real life paranormal” and want to experience it, despite myself. Sometimes I’m lucky and it just happens, like for Untethered; I left my body as a kid when falling down a flight of stairs. But sometimes, I have to seek it out.
My most recent research discovery? Channeling. It’s like mediumship, only with higher beings. The leader guides you through deeper and deeper meditation, inviting those she calls "spirit guides" to come to you. To communicate through you. To use your body and voice to speak so you can hear them. (Um, yeah. I’m still reeling from the fact I signed up for this. And voluntarily.)
Part of me had thought this workshop would be a bunch of bull – more smoke and mirrors than anything else. And another part of me was terrified that it wouldn’t be. That it would be all too real.
Well, it was real. But thanks to the leader, it wasn’t scary. Just…weird. Very weird.
At one point during the weekend, I let go of my fears for a minute and felt the energy around me change. A weight, like a blanket of electricity, settled over me and in me. My left side began to twitch uncontrollably and I sensed something nudging me from the inside out. My body felt warm and happy and…full. Just a little too full. Like I wasn’t the only one in there.
My fears swooped in again and I cut the experience off.
I opened my eyes, sucked in a breath and wished the presence away. It was enough to do the trick. I sat there instead, watching the others. Two of my friends started speaking in a way they wouldn’t normally. Their breathing changed. The pitch of their voice was different. So was their posture. Their facial expressions. They weren’t themselves. Literally.
Fifteen minutes later, we were all blinking at each other amazed at what had happened. Amazed and unsure. Because that’s the nature of the paranormal. It can be difficult to believe. It can be difficult to prove. But it’s also difficult to forget.
Right now I’m writing a novel that involves the devil. I’m sticking to books and internet for research on that subject. But I know for other books I’ll be trying out other things, with both fascination and trepidation. I’m open to learning about most anything.
Anything but the Ouija board. 
Katie Hayoz was born in Racine, WI, the youngest of six kids. Originally, she wanted to become pope (for the awesome hat and fancy robes), but quickly realized reading was her true religion. Writing was always a hobby and she only decided to try her hand at it seriously when she ended up in Geneva, Switzerland. Now she's constantly at her laptop in the small apartment she shares with her husband, two daughters, and a very fuzzy cat. She devours YA novels like she does popcorn and black licorice: quickly and in large quantities.
Connect with Katie on her website: www.katiehayoz.com
On Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7032949.Katie_Hayoz
On Twitter: www.twitter.com/katiehayoz
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/katiehayoz.author
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