Dec 9, 2013

Blog Tour: Dead Land

Title:  Bad Land
Author: J. E. Byrne
Publisher: Take Two Publishing
Publish Date:  27 November 2013
Pages: 228
ISBN: 978-0989653336
Genre:  YA, Dystopian
Series:  None

Caught up in the rave of the ultimate high school party, eighteen-year-old Sarah Cain finds herself outside at 3:10am with her high school crush. Together they witness a violent explosion that tears through the sky. Knocked unconscious, Sarah awakens to a world she no longer recognizes. The sun does not rise, there is no moon or stars, and black rain falls heavily on her shoulders. Forced into survival, Sarah is frequented with strange words and dreams that mystically draw her toward a mountain promising life, even amidst her dying world. Setting out on foot to follow this vision, Sarah meets up with other survivors and discovers that some of them have shared her same dream. Together the group sets off to find The Mountain. Tempted by good and evil at every turn, survivors must decide which path to take.


BENVOLIO 
Romeo, away, be gone! 
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain. 
Stand not amazed: the prince will doom thee death, 
If thou art taken: hence, be gone, away!

ROMEO 
O, I am fortune's fool!

BENVOLIO 
Why dost thou stay?

           Exit Romeo.

            What would a great story be without the triumphs and tragedies of love? In one of my favorite romantic stories, Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet, Romeo has secretly wed Juliet, whose parents have already secretly arranged in marriage to the noble Paris. If not yet enough conflict, Romeo later kills Juliet’s cousin Tybalt in revenge for Tybalt’s slaying of Romeo’s friend Mercutio. As Romeo realizes his doomed fate, he cries out, “O, I am fortune’s fool! Sadly, we all know how this tragic love triangle ends.

            In Dead Land, protagonist Sarah Cain loves two men, and seemingly two men love her. One may prove her savior, while the other may lead her toward a path of doom.  One will have her understanding what real love can be, while at the same time leaving her with the realization that she, too, is fortune’s fool. Who will she choose? How will their story end? The following are some of my favorite relationship-themed lines, woven into the web of  a Dead Land.


I could not bear to lose him; not this way, not yet. Everyone looked at me and awaited a signal, but it was one that I did not want to give. Finally Claire couldn’t take it anymore. She glared at me. I could see the message in her eyes. She was going after David, even if it meant dying with him. I met her stare and did not back down. If this was how our tragic love triangle was going to play out, then so be it. I was not going to intervene with fate. I, too, was fortune’s fool, I thought. I turned away as she took off down the path after him.

He sounded so confident, his voice soft yet strong. I again looked up at his face, into his eyes. He looked back, deeply into mine. His arms were still around me, secure and warm in their embrace. For minutes we didn’t say anything. We just searched each other’s souls in the depths of our gaze. I have to confess that it was at this moment when I first realized that I loved him. I loved his strength, I loved his depth, and most of all I loved his goodness. I felt it so deeply that I wanted nothing more than to let it consume me.


But instead of grabbing the cup, he grabbed me. Lance leaned into me and pressed his lips onto mine. I pulled his body against me, craving his warmth. He wrapped his arms around me and tilted his head. We fit. We fit perfectly. I forgot there was no coffee. I forgot there was no food. I forgot the world had ended. All I knew was how I felt at that moment.


I fell into the early stages of sleep. I could feel his breath at my ear.
“Sarah,” he whispered. “I love you.”
I opened my eyes. He had turned away before I could even respond. He was checking on Leah. He laid a blanket on her as she breathed softly in her sleep. I pretended that I was asleep and that I hadn’t heard him, but of course I had.

Romeo and Juliet’s youthful passion and impulse eventually leads them to their grave destinations. As Dead Land progresses, Sarah develops into a person of strength and character, but will it be enough to save her from such impulse?

JULIET
 O God, I have an ill-divining soul! 
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below, 
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb. 
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.

ROMEO
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you: 
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!


SARAH from Dead Land…

As I followed my fated path, I walked with a symphony of lament on my imaginary iPod. It told me that there were certain things in life that I could not change. I wished that {he} could hear the music. Then he would know the helplessness I felt as I entered my time in the wilderness. I was the lost sheep. I wondered if he would ever come looking for me. I hoped not; in a strange way, I wanted to be lost. I wanted to be left alone. I wanted him to feel my absence.


As an undergraduate Journalism student at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, Jodi took the advice of one of her professors and changed her major to English, specifically focusing on the art of writing. This decision laid the foundation for a career in technical writing, teaching, and eventually fiction writer. Her debut novel, Dead Land, is set to be released by Take Two Publishing on December 3, 2013.

Dead Land follows the life of eighteen year-old Sarah Cain as she struggles to survive the pressures and temptations of high school, relationships, self-discovery…and the end of the world. The novel combines Jodi’s love of fiction, appreciation for young adults and the many challenges they face, and a passion for the spiritual components in life.

A free sample chapter is available for download from Byrne's website.










Oct 27, 2013

Sentinel Blog Tour

Title: Daimon: The Prequel to Half-Blood
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Publish Date:  10 May 2011
Pages: 62
ISBN:  9780983157267
Genre:  YA, fantasy, mythology
Series:  Covenant
Other books in series:  Half-Blood, Pure, Deity, Elixir, Apollyon, Sentinel (02 November 2013)
Other books by author:  Lux series, Wait For You series, Gamble Brothers series, Frigid, Obsession, Cursed, Nephilim Rising series, Don’t Look Back, The Dark Elements series

"Love in my world usually ended up with someone hearing 'I smite thee ' as she was cursed to be some lame flower for the rest of her life." For three years, Alexandria has lived among mortals--pretending to be like them and trying to forget the duty she'd been trained to fulfill as a child of a mortal and a demigod. At seventeen, she's pretty much accepted that she's a freak by mortal standards... and that she'll never be prepared for that duty. According to her mother, that's a good thing.But as every descendant of the gods knows, Fate has a way of rearing her ugly head. A horrifying attack forces Alex to flee Miami and try to find her way back to the very place her mother had warned her she should never return-the Covenant. Every step that brings her closer to safety is one more step toward death... because she's being hunted by the very creatures she'd once trained to kill. The daimons have found her.

I have been included as part of the Sentinel blog tour.  Since Sentinel is the last of the Covenant series, we are reviewing all of the previous books on the tour before Sentinel comes out on 02 November 2013.  I have been asked to cover Daimon.  I have previously reviewed this book and interviewed Armentrout and thought I would post some snippets of that review and interview here on this tour.  Daimon is an e-book that is free to download from the Spencer Hill website and is only 62 pages.  Because it is so short, there is not a lot that you can say about it.

You first get introduced to Alex in this book.  You also learn what Daimon's are.  "Daimons feed on aether, the essence of the gods or the life force running through pure-bloods and less concentrated in half-bloods.  What happens when she [Alex] encounters the Daimon is where this story really starts."


# 1 New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Jennifer L. Armentrout Lives in West Virginia.

All the rumors you heard about her state aren’t true.

Well, mostly. When she's not hard at work writing, she spends her time, reading, working out, watching zombie movies, and pretending to write.

She is the author of the Covenant Series (Spencer Hill Press), the Lux Series (Entangled Teen), Don't Look Back (Disney/Hyperion) and a yet untitled novel (Disney/Hyperion), and new YA paranormal series with Harlequin Teen.

Jennifer also writes New Adult and Adult romance under the pen name J. Lynn. The Gamble Brothers Series (Tempting the Best Man/Tempting the Player) and Wait for You. Under her pen name, she is published with Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.


This interview was conducted on 07 January 2012

♦You have a few different series out.  Which one is your favorite to work on and why? Do you have a favorite character?  If so, who is it and why?

Whatever series I'm working on is usually my favorite. It has to be for me to do my best. So one moment I'm totally in love with the Covenant Series and the next I'm all about the Lux series. I think my two favorite characters are Alex from the Covenant Series and Daemon from the Lux Series. Both of those characters bring the snark and I love me some snark!

♦Cursed is coming out in September 2012.  Is this book going to be a
stand-alone book or a series?  Can you tell us a little about this book and
where you got the inspiration for it?

Cursed is currently a standalone and is about a girl who dies and comes back (thanks to her little sister) with a toxic touch. Anything she touches basically withers up and dies. Beside trying to discover how her sister brought her back and what the means, Ember has to learn how to control her ability plus discover who caused the accident in the first place and why. Of course, she has some help from an uber hot guy with his own secrets and abilities. My inspiration for Cursed was kind of weird. It all started with the opening scene, which is Ember waking up with a dead hamster sitting on her chest. Yeah, I know, bizarre. But the hamster was her little sister's pet that had died and was brought back. So it was a weird Pet Cemetery moment., kind of creepy, kind of fun. It just spawned from there.

♦What inspires you when you write?

It's pretty simple. Telling stories inspries me. 


♦Do you base your characters off of real people?  Do you have a process for coming up with characters?

Some secondary characters are based loosely on people I know, but the main characters almost never. The characters are usually the first thing I come up and the plot develops around them. 

♦Do you ever experience writer’s block and how do you get over it?

Oh, God, yes. Scary moments there. Usually I try to power through them with a sledgehammer, but if the block is real big, then I moved ahead in the story, write a scene I want and then come back to the area that's tripping me up. 

♦What type/genre of books do you like to read?  What are you currently reading?

I'm a fan of paranormal and fantasy mostly. Right now I'm reading a billion novels it seems: Immortal Rider, Hallowed, Goddess Interrupted, Legend, and Enclave.

♦Favorite color: Red. 

♦Favorite holiday/season: Halloween and Christmas are tied.  

♦Word that best describes you and why: Random. I'm pretty random.

♦Optimist or pessimist: Realist. 

♦Favorite author/book/series: Right now? Rachel Vincent Soul Screamers.

♦Favorite food/drink: Red meat and coffee (healthy, right?)

♦Favorite place to read/write: Living room. 


Spencer Hill Press is giving away a $200 gift card to Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Book Depository or any indie bookstore of the winner's choice to not only stock up on amazing books, but to perhaps buy a Nook HD or Kindle Fire.


a Spencer Hill Press giveaway







Spencer Hill Press FREE eBook copy of Daimon


Aug 7, 2013

Breathe

Title: Breathe   
Author: Abbi Glines
Publisher: Wild Child Publishing, Simon Pulse
Publish Date:  16 May 2011 (Wild Child); 04 June 2013 (Simon Pulse)
Pages: 333
ISBN: 9781442488694
Source:  bought; received at BEA
Genre:  YA, romance, contemporary
Series:  Sea Breeze
Other books in series:  Because of Low, While it Lasts, Just for Now, Sometimes It Lasts, A Little Misbehavin'
Other books by author:  The Vincent Boys series, Existence Trilogy, Too Far series
Rating: really liked

In the shore town of Sea Breeze, Sadie discovers that fame is nothing in the face of passion. A steamy read from bestselling author Abbi Glines.

Sadie White’s summer job is at the beach, but she won’t be working as a lifeguard. Since her mom is pregnant and refuses to work, Sadie will be taking over as a domestic servant for a wealthy family on a nearby island.

When the family arrives at their summer getaway, Sadie is surprised to learn that the owner of the house is Jax Stone, one of the hottest teen rockers in the world. If Sadie were normal—if she hadn’t spent her life raising her mother and taking care of the house—maybe she’d be excited about working for a rock star. But she’s not.

Even though Sadie isn’t impressed by Jax’s fame, he is drawn to her. Everything about Sadie fascinates Jax, but he fights his attraction: Relationships never work in his world, and as badly as he wants Sadie, he believes she deserves more. Yet as the summer stretches on, Jax’s passion leaves him breathless—and Sadie feels like the only source of oxygen.


Can their love overcome the disparity in their lifestyles? One breath at a time, they’re going to find out…

Even though Sadie is supposed to be the child in the relationship with Jessica, she found herself acting like the parent more often than not.  That is what got her into the predicament at the Stone resident.  Jessica, her mother, is pregnant and couldn’t go to work, so she puts it on Sadie to go for her.  Sadie isn’t sure that they are going to let her work in her mother’s place.  When she arrives at the Stone residence, she has to prove to Ms. Mary that she is not going to be some crazy teenager when the owner and rock star heartthrob, Jax Stone, show up. 

While working at the Stone mansion, Sadie makes friends and catches the eye of Jax.  She and Jax start spending as much time together as they can given their schedules.  She knows as soon as she starts things with Jax that it is not going to have a happy ending.  He will go back to his world and she will only have memories of the time she spent with him.  What will happen between Sadie and Jax?  How will Jessica deal with their relationship? 

I have read a lot of books by Glines recently and really like her writing style.  Even though Sadie is “beautiful” and is told that multiple times throughout the book, she still doesn’t believe it.  Not that she necessarily has self-esteem issues, but I don’t think she has had a lot of time to think about it.  She just thinks that she is not as pretty as her mother and that is the ending of her thinking on the matter.  I liked that she is not stuck on her beauty like some of the girls her age that you read about. 

Sadie has some other qualities that are admirable.  She takes care of her pregnant mother.  This doesn’t end after her mom gives birth.  Why should it?  Sadie has been doing it for a long time.  She is a hard worker and doesn’t let her teenage curiosities get the better of her.  She needs this job to support her family – a thing she shouldn’t have to think about at her age.  I don’t need to reiterate that Sadie is responsible.

Jax is a rock star; a teenage rock star that has oodles of girls fawning over him.  That is the reason that he doesn’t want any teenage girls to work at his summer home, his one place where he can go and be “normal” for a while.  When he first sees Sadie, he thinks that she snuck into his house to get his autograph or just get close to him.  It baffles him that she doesn’t act all fangirl on him and actually is concerned about her job.  I like Jax in this story.  Even though he is this big star, you learn how grounded he is.  He doesn’t think that he is on a level up in the stratosphere while Sadie belongs in the dirt.

This book was a fun read.  Who doesn’t want the rock star to fall in love with you?  It seems like a fairy tale, like a modern-day The Prince and the Pauper.  I like the way Sadie learns to rely on other people.  If Jax had been in a “boy band,” I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the story as much.  Just saying… 






Since this is a re-release of the book, there is a new cover.  There have been two other covers that I found.  The next cover (#2) is the one that I got when I bought the book.  After reading, I found out that this is the e-book cover.


This next cover (#3) was on the paperbacks.  I admit that I liked that better than the e-book covers.


Cover #1 is the one used at the top of this post.  This is the most recent one that was used when Simon Pulse re-released the book.  This is also the one that I got when I received the hard copy at BEA.  I read somewhere that for the re-release, Glines had put some of Jax's POV, so that would make it better.  I know that would make me want to re-read the story.

As far as which cover I liked the best, I would have to say #3.  In #1, it's nice because it has a nice looking girl, guy and a guitar.  But these are supposed to be teenagers.  Granted, I guess teenagers COULD look like the cover, but I would say that they are a little older. The other thing is that Sadie is supposed to different than the millions of fangirls, which means she likes him for him and not just what he represents.  This cover just doesn't show that.

 #2 is just generic in my opinion.  It has a person playing the guitar.  You don't even know if it is a male or female.  You could PRESUME that it is a guy, but it doesn't have to be.  I don't really get a sense of the story from that cover.  I like covers that represent the story.  I chose #3 because I like the softness of it.  The models might very well be the same ones from cover #1, but you really cannot tell.  This cover, to me, represents that Sadie just likes being with Jax.  No pretense or special things needed.










Aug 5, 2013

Guest Post: Lois Metzger

Title: A Trick of the Light
Author: Lois Metzger
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publish Date:  18 June 2013
Pages: 208
ISBN:  9780062133083
Source:  from publisher
Genre:  YA, Contemporary, Psych
Series:  None
Other books by author:  Missing Girls; Ellen’s Case; Yours, Anne: The Life of Anne Frank; Can You Keep a Secret?  Ten Stories About Secrets; Bites and Bones Flip Book; Be Careful What You Wish For: Ten Stories about Wishes

Mike Welles had everything under control. But that was before. Now things are rough at home, and they’re getting confusing at school. He’s losing his sense of direction, and he feels like he’s a mess.

Then there’s a voice in his head. A friend, who’s trying to help him get control again. More than that—the voice can guide him to become faster and stronger than he was before, to rid his life of everything that’s holding him back. To figure out who he is again. If only Mike will listen.

Telling a story of a rarely recognized segment of eating disorder sufferers—young men—A Trick of the Light by Lois Metzger is a book for fans of the complex characters and emotional truths in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls and Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why.


A Trick of the Light is the latest release by Lois Metzger. To celebrate this release, YABR has handed over the reigns to Metzger and let her do a guest post.


It's a question writers often get asked. Some find it hard to answer, because ideas can float around in your head for a while, or several different entirely unrelated things may have to combine to create a story.

In the case of my new young-adult novel, A Trick of the Light (HarperCollins), I know exactly where I got the idea, and also when.

On Wednesday, August 4, 2004, I read an article in the New York Daily News called "Not For Girls Only."

The article began: "Sue Roberts couldn't stop fuming after watching a 'Dr. Phil' show on eating disorders. The two-part series features several girls with bulimia and anorexia. 'What about the boys?' she remembers asking herself, then furiously writing an e-mail to the talk-show host."

Sue Roberts' 16-year-old son, Justin, the article said, "almost starved himself to death after several doctor's visits missed important signs." Justin was "a straight-A student who wanted to be perfect in every way." At 13, a coach happened to tell Justin that he could "shave a few seconds off his mile time if he lost some weight." Then, around the same time, a tall thin boy, a classmate of Justin's, looked over at Justin, called him fat and laughed. "Maybe I am," Justin thought, and decided to stop eating, pretty much just like that.

At first, Justin's parents complimented him on how good he looked, how disciplined he was. Then they noticed he was dropping weight too rapidly, that his personality had changed. "We were all walking on eggshells because he would blow up about little things," his mother said.

Within four months, Justin, five feet tall and originally 130 pounds, went down to 82 pounds. The article explained: "His lips, fingertips and nails looked bluish. He wore baggy sweatshirts to hide his frail body, but he couldn't conceal the malnourishment evident in his sunken eyes and hollow cheeks."

Justin's mother couldn't prove to her insurance company that her son needed hospitalization, so finally she had him admitted on her own. "His condition was worse than she thought," the article went on. "His heart rate was 42 beats per minute. He had zero body fat. His body temperature was 92, and there were patches of hair growing on his stomach and neck. It was his body's way of trying to keep him warm. He was days away from death."

During his brief hospital stay, Justin "saw an emaciated girl walking in the hallway, talking to herself." He decided: "I really don't want to be like that." He began eating and he recovered fully. In less than a year, he grew four inches. Talking of his present state, he could say: "I'm more outgoing, more confident. I'm happy now."

I got a strange feeling while reading this article. Kind of an other-worldly, floating, almost surreal sensation. I've written only three previous novels, and the same thing happened before I began writing the other books, too. In each case I knew immediately that here was a story that wouldn't leave me alone.

So it's not really accurate to say this is where I got the idea for "A Trick of the Light." This is where the idea was getting me.

I got in touch with the writer of the excellent article I'd been reading, Julie Patel, then a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News (she now she writes for the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida). She put me in touch with Sue Roberts and Justin. They were extremely helpful in giving me more details about the journey of recovery, and referred me to a doctor at Stanford University, James Lock, author of two ground-breaking books on eating disorders. Dr. Lock gave me the names of some doctors and families in NYC so I could meet and interview them. I stayed in contact with Sue Roberts; I'm very glad to say she wrote me recently that Justin, now a young man, remains happy and healthy.

The 15-year-old boy in my book, Mike Welles, has much in common with Justin. He, too, develops an eating disorder rather quickly, and loses weight alarmingly fast. A doctor misleadingly tells Mike he is fine, insisting that anorexia only affects girls. As the disease progresses, Mike's vital signs are similar to Justin's. Mike, too, encounters a girl at a hospital, who freaks him out because she's talking to herself. Mike doesn't recover as fast as Justin did, but he does take significant steps toward recovery.

Julie Patel's article emphasizes that eating disorders among men and boys are on the rise (this was almost ten years ago, and the problem has only gotten worse). Ten percent of people with eating disorders are male, and currently there are ten million people in the U.S. with eating disorders, which means at least a million boys and men (and many people say the figure is much higher). Their disease still gets missed by doctors who think only women and girls can get eating disorders, and many hospitals and eating-disorders clinics still only admit girls and women. Then, as now, eating disorders have the highest death rate of any psychological disorder, estimated between five and 20 percent.

I didn't realize, when the idea got hold of me, where it would lead -- right to the heart of a struggle against a disease that too often ends in tragedy.




Lois Metzger, author of A Trick of the Light, was born in Queens and has always written for young adults. She is the author of three previous novels and two nonfiction books about the Holocaust, and she has edited five anthologies. Her short stories have appeared in collections all over the world. Her writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and Harper's Bazaar. She lives in Greenwich Village with her husband and son.