suspenseful

How to Fall by Jane Casey

how to fall

 

Jane Casey’s How to Fall is a great story all around – I loved the characters, the setting, and the eerie mystery surrounding Freya’s death. Jess makes an intriguing protagonist and amateur detective which made the story even more likable. While this novel felt complete and satisfying, it also left room for sequels, which I’m very much looking forward to! If you’re looking for something to usher in the fall season and compliment the Halloween candy already showing up in stores, this is definitely it! Find How to Fall: A Novel (Jess Tennant Mysteries) here on Amazon or grab it at your favorite local bookstore.

Golden by Jessi Kirby

golden

 

I’m a sucker for a good YA novel with a pretty cover, but a book with a pretty cover (even gold foil on the paperback! too gorgeous) AND Robert Frost poetry woven in? I’m so there. Golden by Jessi Kirby is a really beautifully written story full of romance, mystery, and adventure. The story is compelling and the characters are realistically flawed with plenty of redeeming value. Parker, the main character, is a protagonist that I rooted for all the way through, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the way her story turned out. You’ll love this one!  Click here to find Golden on Amazon!

GIVEAWAY CONTINUED!!! Dream Boy Blog Tour: Madelyn Rosenberg Takes Over!

 

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When I found out that Madelyn would be willing to do a guest post for me, I sent her a long string of rambling questions and thoughts I had after finishing Dream Boy a few months ago. I’m excited to turn the blog over to her today so she can give you more insight into where the idea for Dream Boy came from and how the characters were developed! (AND you still have time to enter the GIVEAWAY for a copy of Dream Boy! Click for a Rafflecopter giveaway! ————————————————————————–

Nothing could hurt you when the world smelled like cotton candy—at least that’s what Chance Bell thought as she inhaled its pink spun sweetness.
 
That’s the first sentence for a novel Mary and I started together years and years and years ago, before either of us knew what novel-writing really was. We got about six chapters in, and we sent off a query to Harlequin, and they wrote us a lovely I’m-sorry note about why it wasn’t perfect for them. Then Mary moved forward with her poetry career and I moved forward in the world of kidlit. Fast forward about 10 years, maybe more, to the day Mary asked me if I wanted to write about a boy from a dream that came to life. I said yes right away. I don’t remember if she asked via e-mail or phone (I saved most of our e-mails and couldn’t find the first of them, but there were well over a thousand between then and now.)
The original spark, Mary said, came after she watched a Ginger Rogers movie at 4 a.m. She was half asleep while the movie (It Had to Be You) was playing but in it, a guy dressed like a Native American seems to pop out of Ginger’s dream. So what if we did a story where that happened in a girl’s dream? Then, the negotiations started. Mary wanted it to be romantic. I told her I wouldn’t do it unless it could be funny, too. And both of us loved stories that were grounded in reality but had fantastic elements to them. We started writing. I wish we could tell you there was a great plan or outline, but really we figured out almost everything as we went along. Which may have lengthened our writing process a little. Mary would write a chapter. Then she’d pass it off to me and I’d pick up where she left off (changing some of her chapter as I went) and so on. I’m not sure we knew where we were going until we got there.
We definitely changed the plot as we went. We debated who Annabelle would end up with, in part because we ended up liking our characters so much. Even the jerks. And we added and deleted some spooky elements and then added others.
(Actual conversation:
Mad: We can’t use that. I just think it sounds too much like The Exorcist.
Mary: But I’ve never even SEEN The Exorcist.
Mad: How can you have never seen The Exorcist?)
We gave Annabelle’s mom an obsession with old movies as a tribute to Ginger. Annabelle remains fairly grounded in the story (something Melissa asked me about because, as she said, “I’d be freaking.”) I think there are two reasons for this. One: pre-emptive hormones. In that I think the idea of love and what she has to do for it keeps her moving forward and too much panic would get in the way of that. I don’t want to get into any spoilers, so I’ll just say that she’s stronger than she knows. Plus, she’s dealt with some real-life things that have made her feel crazy, and I think she learned from those that panic and craziness don’t get you anywhere. (Or help move the story forward as much as we needed it to move =)
Melissa also asked about a sequel or companion book. We wrote Dream Boy as a standalone, so there’s nothing in the works. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t thought about it, as neither of us feels finished with these characters. As a reader, one of my favorite things when I finish a book is to imagine what happens next. And as a writer, it’s pretty much the same thing. If the story were to continue, I think we’d both be interested in exploring Dream World a little bit more. And we’ve been doing a little matchmaking, too, which I won’t go into – no spoilers, not even for a story that may never be written. But for now, what happens next is really up to readers’ imaginations.

Dream Boy is available on Amazon and in your favorite local bookstores, and you still have until this Sunday to enter the DREAM BOY GIVEAWAY through Rafflecopter!

GIVEAWAY! Dream Boy by Mary Crockett and Madelyn Rosenberg

dream boy

 

You know the feeling you have when you wake up after a particularly vivid dream? Struggling to decipher between dream and reality because it just seems so real, maybe trying to go back to sleep and enter that dream again, but eventually losing the details as it fades from your memory?

In Dream Boy, Annabelle is having a series of those very vivid dreams all featuring the same guy – she can hardly wait to get back to sleep and see him again – until he walks into her Science class as a new student… And he knows who Annabelle is as if they’ve met before! Talk about blurring the lines between real and imaginary. Of course,

I really enjoyed Dream Boy and loved the way that the authors wove paranormal elements into an otherwise contemporary realistic piece of fiction. It reminded me of Lisa McMann’s books, which I also think are wonderful, in that it’s a very accessible YA form of magical realism. They’ve also done a great job of creating characters with enough depth to handle the twists and turns they throw into the plot as the story goes from a simple “oh hey, my dream came true” to a “oh crap, does that mean nightmares can too?” kind of suspense.

I totally recommend getting a copy and reading right now… and then stopping back by here in a few days, when one of the authors, Madelyn Rosenberg, will be here to answer some questions about how Dream Boy came to be after I sent the following long, rambly e-mail to her:

  • I’d love to know more about where the idea came from – it felt familiar in that there are books out there that sort of dance all over that boundary between realistic fiction and paranormal, but it also felt refreshingly new.
  • It was impossible to read, too, without thinking of how much I’d be freaking out if I were in Annabelle’s shoes. So where did the idea of a literal dream come true come from? And from the spark of the idea, how did the whole story develop?
  • I’d love to hear, too, about the possibility of a sequel or companion novel. What’s next for Annabelle, Will, Martin, and the rest?

Click here to find it on Amazon, or ask about it at your favorite local bookseller, and enter for a chance to WIN A COPY through a Rafflecopter giveaway!!!

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

maze runner

 

With the movie version of The Maze Runner coming out in September, which looks amazing based on all I’ve seen so far, I wanted to get started with actually reading the series.

In The Maze Runner, a teenaged boy named Thomas suddenly wakes up in a sort of elevator. He has amnesia – he doesn’t remember anything about who he is or how he got there, but he remembers basic things about how to live, the names of things, and feels like he recognizes stuff but doesn’t know why. At the end of the lift, the doors open to reveal a group of other teenaged boys stuck in a maze. Just as Thomas starts to figure out how the maze society works, another unexpected thing happens: a girl is delivered in the box the very next day, the first girl ever to be sent to the maze, and she has a scary message to deliver. Throughout the course of the book, Thomas tries to remember anything that would explain why they’re there and how they could possibly make it out of the maze.

I don’t even really know how to classify this book – it’s not dystopian as there’s nothing seemingly “perfect” about the society Thomas suddenly finds himself in, and Dashner doesn’t reveal much to us about life outside of the maze until the very end so I hesitate to call it a post-apocolytic novel, but it’s pretty clear that something big is happening. As the reader tries to figure it out along with Thomas and the other kids trapped in the maze, we’re a part of and adventure that is definitely thrilling.

Fans of books like the Divergent and Hunger Games series’ will find The Maze Runner interesting, though it doesn’t have the romantic element found in those. I’ll definitely be adding this title to my 8th grade summer reading list – it’s a great option for students probably 7th grade and up.

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

 

we were liars

 

Mark my words… this will be the next YA title to take the world by storm, like The Fault In Our Stars did last year. I so hope they make a movie out of this.

All I can really say about this without giving anything away is that it was really, really beautifully written and masterfully crafted. I started this thinking I was getting into a typical summery beach YA title, but what I found was something that consumed my entire Sunday because I just could not put it down. This is the first E. Lockhart title I’ve read, and it has single-handedly turned me into a fan.

The characters are intriguing, and the style with which Lockhart builds this story is effortlessly suspenseful and mysterious.

I can’t even tell you what it reminds me of without getting into spoilers, so I won’t. But you should definitely read it when it comes out next week! Preorder, reserve, send to kindle… whatever. Get it.

With a twist I didn’t see coming, Liars shocked me in the most delightful way… but the best part about that was I could go back and see the clues Lockhart left along the way, and though I never would have seen the end coming, it made perfect sense once I got there.

From She Reads: The Divergent Trilogy

Divergent

This review originally posted on www.shereads.org last month.

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Veronica Roth’s DIVERGENT series has taken the YA literary world by storm, comparable to the popularity of TWILIGHT and THE HUNGER GAMES in previous years. Some readers are eager to jump on the bandwagon and experience the latest all-the-rage series, while others are left with questions:

  • Does it really stand up to the hype?
  • Could it really be as good as The Hunger Games?
  • Is it worth reading the book if I already saw the movie?
  • Can I go see the movie with young adults without feeling awkward?
  • Is the movie more than just a reason to go watch Theo James on the big screen for a few hours?

The answer is a whole-hearted YES on all counts.

DIVERGENT is a dystopian trilogy taking place in a far-future Chicago. War has left the city in disrepair, and in an effort to keep peace people are divided between five factions: Abnegation (the selfless), Candor (the honest), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent), and Dauntless (the brave). When the story opens, the main character, Beatrice (Tris) Prior is preparing for the test that will help her choose which faction she’ll enter for her adulthood: Abnegation, which she was born into, or one of the other four. The drama begins, though, when Tris’s test results are inconclusive and she has to navigate society as one who doesn’t fit with just one faction; she is what they call Divergent, and that makes her a target of society leaders.

As a writer, Veronica Roth is incredibly talented. She has created a future world that is fascinating and believable, yet far-fetched enough that it feels not like home. There are references to known Chicago landmarks, making the setting recognizable and relatable. Her characters, while futuristic, are also completely relatable – it only takes a few pages to get drawn into Tris’s story, which starts in DIVERGENT, continues in INSURGENT, and resolves in ALLEGIANT. I’m also intrigued by the fact that she started writing this in college and, even now, with three books out, a major motion picture, and a fourth book coming soon, is only twenty-five years old. That’s crazy!

I saw the movie on opening night, and it was great. Really. But, it didn’t get anywhere near the level of detail that you find in the books. I know that’s a common complaint with movies based on books, but in this case it’s not just a casual observation about the movie; it’s a compliment to the depth of Roth’s writing. I love the way she has broken people down into factions to describe personality types and how that forces you think about human nature as you read. I love that there’s plenty of romantic appeal in Tris’s relationship with Four (played by Theo James, as seen in the movie poster) and that their relationship is supportive and exciting without being sexual. I love the suspense and intrigue that keep you reading without being able to stop – I blew through all three books in a week and just couldn’t get enough.

Basically, I just love this trilogy. This is one case where, whether you see the movie before or after reading the books, you really need to read the books. I won’t say they’re an easy, lighthearted read – the emotional rollercoaster is a wild one, and the characters and storyline will dominate your thoughts even while you’re not reading – but I will promise that they’re worth your time!

The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

the here and now

First of all, you can’t go into this book with any thoughts of Brashares’ previous YA titles, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books, in your mind. It would be like expecting to find apples in a book all about oranges.

Second, this is a really beautifully done futuristic/dystopian kind of a thing with a flat-out gorgeous cover. It’s difficult to put a label on this book, but it’s intriguing from the very beginning. The concepts explored by Brashares in The Here and Now were compelling – I found myself thinking a lot about the idea of time, the future, the impact of everything on the future, global warming, disease, I don’t know. It was just very thought provoking, but not in a depressing way.

Prenna and Ethan are characters that I instantly wanted to know more about, and I found myself actually reading slower than usual so I could enjoy their story for longer. I love characters I can root for, whether it’s in a friendship or in a romantic relationship, and they didn’t disappoint. They make a great team. I was also super impressed with Prenna in the final third of the book – she develops into a force to be reckoned with, which is always fun to see in a YA novel.

My only complaint is that the ending felt abrupt. I don’t know if it’s being set up for a sequel or a trilogy or something… wouldn’t surprise me given the Pants books being a series. There was enough resolution that I felt satisfied, but not enough to wrap up all the loose ends, which I suppose is the perfect mix if it’s going to continue in the future. I’ll definitely be picking up any future books related to The Here and Now!

You can find it here on Amazon, or in your favorite book store, on April 8th. Enjoy!

The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher

the killing woods

I read Stolen, also by Lucy Christopher, a few years ago and loved how it unnerved me. When I requested The Killing Woods on NetGalley, I wasn’t even paying attention to the author’s name and making that connection to Stolen, but I sure made that connection quick when I started reading. Christopher has an uncanny ability to make her reader doubt what we assume to be true. It makes for a wild, psychologically thrilling ride.

In The Killing Woods, we follow Emily and Damon as they try to get to the bottom of who killed Ashlee, Damon’s girlfriend. Emily’s PTSD military father is arrested for the crime, but did he really do it? No one seems to know or be able to remember, and it’s a pretty crazy ride as we go back and forth between Emily and Damon’s POV until the mystery is solved.

I’m recommending this for upper high school and beyond… there’s a ton of drinking/drug use and generally irresponsible behavior, but it’s not portrayed in a positive light at all. In fact, Emily is pretty much the only character who’s actually acting like she has any kind of common sense throughout most of the book. If you can put that stuff aside, though, this is a really well done YA mystery/thriller. It had me on the edge of my seat and a little afraid of the dark while I was reading!

You can find The Killing Woods here on Amazon or at your favorite bookseller.