Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Entangled Teen's Urban vs. Epic Fantasy Week


Welcome to Entangled Teen's Urban vs. Epic Fantasy Week!

If you’re a fantasy lover, you probably run (rather than walk) to your nearest bookstore or fave online bookshop whenever a new YA fantasy novel releases. However, some of you are possibly a little more discriminating. Rather than read any type of fantasy novel, you might prefer either Urban Fantasy or Epic Fantasy…just like some of the Entangled Teen authors.

From February 27 to March 3rd, Entangled TEEN is featuring some of their new and backlist titles in a YA Series promo called Team Urban vs. Team Epic Fantasy, including:

Team Urban Fantasy: 
- Guardian of Secrets (Library Jumpers, #2) by Brenda Drake
- Fanning the Flames (Going Down in Flames, #4) by Chris Cannon
- Spindle by Shonna Slayton
- Inbetween by Tara Fuller
- Salt by Danielle Ellison
- My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century by Rachel Harris
- Atlantis Rising by Gloria Craw

Team Epic Fantasy:
- Island of Exiles (The Ryogan Chronicles, #1) by Erica Cameron
- Garden of Thorns by Amber Mitchell
- True North (True Born, #2) by L.E. Sterling
- In Truth & Ashes (Otherselves, #3) by Nicole Luiken
- Relic by Renee Collins
- The Summer Marked (The Winter People, #2)
- Greta and the Goblin King (Mylena Chronicles, #1) by Chloe Jacobs

The Urban vs. Epic Fantasy Week is a chance for readers – like you – and Entangled Teen authors to make their allegiances to either urban or epic fantasy known. You may have kept your preferences a secret until now, but we hope you’ll take the time to confirm your #TeamUrban or #TeamEpic tendencies loud and clear over the course of the week.


Tuesday, February 28th: Team Urban vs. Team Epic Fantasy Twitter Chat @ 9-10 pm EST hosted by @EntangledTeen

Wednesday Mar. 1st: A feature with authors on #TeamUrban

Thursday, Mar. 2nd: A feature with authors on #TeamEpic

Friday, Mar. 3rd: I share my allegiance!

So be sure to share whether you are...

#TeamUrban


Or

#TeamEpic



And join in the chat tonight hosted by @Entangled Teen



 Be sure to enter the incredible fantasy giveaway!

Monday, February 27, 2017

Blog Tour: Of the Trees by E.M.Fitch...Review & Giveaway!



Today it is my pleasure to tell you about Of the Trees, a new release by E.M. Lynch from Month9Books!
Keep reading for my review...plus there's a giveaway!!!



Title: OF THE TREES
Author: E.M. Fitch
Pub. Date: February 28, 2017
Publisher: Month9Books
Format: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 345

Cassie and Laney fancy themselves amateur ghost hunters. When a carnival comes to town, Cassie embraces the chance to try something new. 

Carnival workers watch the girls with a collective gaze that ignites in Laney a dark and dangerous fascination, leaving Cassie unnerved. 

It's not just their age or the unsettling way they stare. There is something in the shifting of their skin and the way their features seem to change in the shadows. 

Cassie can's shake this sickening feeling that there's more to the carnival than meets the eye. 

When townspeople suddenly start dying and bloody warnings appear around town, Cassie is lured into a nightmare where trees whisper and strange, shape-shifting men haunt the backwoods she once hunted for ghosts with her best friend. 

Then Laney goes missing, and only Cassie can get her back. But the creatures of the trees aren't simply going to hand Laney over to Cassie without getting something in return.



E.M. Fitch is an author who loves scary stories, chocolate, and tall trees. When not dreaming up new ways to torture characters, she is usually corralling her four children or thinking of ways to tire them out so she can get an hour of peace at night. She lives in Connecticut, surrounded by chaos, which she manages (somewhat successfully) with her husband, Marc.


Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads



Title: Of the Trees
Author: E.M. Fitch
Format: Digital ARC
Source: Publisher (Month9Books)
Genre: YA 

Of the Trees was a highly entertaining read filled with suspense and twists I didn't see coming.

Best friends Laney and Cassie are an interesting pair who share a love for the spooky and enjoy ghost hunting.  In fact, we first meet the pair as they are ghost hunting in a local cemetery.  As a fan of all things supernatural, I was eager to read their story and I was not disappointed.

Things begin to change for the pair after a carnival comes to town bringing with it some suspicious characters and some strange happenings.  Laney seems to change after visiting the carnival and soon after the carnival leaves, she goes missing.  Cassie is determined to find her friend despite the mysterious and ominous people she meets and events that occur along the way.  The outcome was definitely not one I expected and it's hard to write this review because I don't want to spoil things so I'll just say that if you read this book you are definitely in for a strange and fun supernatural ride.

I can say that at first I wasn't quite sure where the story was heading.  It started a little slow with quite a few unusual events occurring that made me wonder about how they'd fit in with the overall story or if they'd even fit.  I remained curious to see what was going on and soon found myself immersed in this story.  I couldn't wait to see what would happen next and I was definitely surprised with each  creepy and strange twist and turn.

The author does an amazing job at painting the scene and characters through strong and wonderful descriptions.  I could easily picture each scene from the creepy woods that surround Cassie's neighborhood to the fascinating, heart-stopping events that happen at the carnival.  The suspense built with each chapter and kept my interest throughout.

I also loved the characters the author created. Each had distinct and interesting personalities that fit the story and made me want to know more.  Cassie was a fascinating and fun character that I could easily relate to and root for as were many of the other characters we meet in the story.

I cannot wait to read more from this author and hope that we get a chance to revisit the characters in the book.

*I received a free digital  arc in exchange for an honest review.*



 1 winner will receive a $25 Fandango Gift Card, US Only.



Good Luck!
And be sure to follow the rest of the Blog Tour!

Tour Schedule:

Week One:
2/27/2017- Lisa's Loves(Books of Course)Interview
2/27/2017- Never Too Many To ReadReview
2/27/2017- Julie ReeceExcerpt

2/28/2017- Tales of the Ravenous ReaderGuest Post
2/28/2017- Book Review BeccaReview

3/1/2017- Two Chicks on BooksInterview
3/1/2017- Omg Books and More BooksReview

3/2/2017- Always & Forever FangirlingExcerpt
3/2/2017- Bookaholic BanterReview

3/3/2017- Rockin' Book ReviewsGuest Post
3/3/2017- QuantumReview

Week Two:
3/6/2017- LILbooKloversInterview
3/6/2017- Don't Judge, ReadReview

3/7/2017- Book Lovers LifeReview

3/8/2017- Hidden Worlds BooksGuest Post
3/8/2017- Book-KeepingReview

3/9/2017- Bibliobibuli YAInterview
3/9/2017- StephanieCassidyBlogReview

3/10/2017- So Few BooksInterview
3/10/2017- I am not a bookworm!Review

Friday, February 24, 2017

Blog Tour: Beautiful Broken Girls by Kim Savage...Review & Giveaway!




Beautiful Broken Girls
by Kim Savage
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Release Date: February 21st 2017
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Contemporary

 photo addtogoodreadssmall_zpsa2a6cf28.png photo B6096376-6C81-4465-8935-CE890C777EB9-1855-000001A1E900B890_zps5affbed6.jpg

Synopsis:

Mira and Francesca Cillo—beautiful, overprotected, odd—seemed untouchable. But Ben touched seven parts of Mira: her palm, hair, chest, cheek, lips, throat, and heart. After the sisters drown themselves in the quarry lake, a post-mortem letter from Mira sends Ben on a quest to find notes in the seven places where they touched. Note by note, Ben discovers the mystical secret at the heart of Mira and Francesca's world, and that some things are better left untouched.















Kim Savage is the author of AFTER THE WOODS, a debut psychological thriller for young adults coming on Feb 23, 2016 with Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Macmillan. Her second thriller for young adults comes from FSG is 2017. Before writing fiction, she worked as business journalist, pitching stories along the lines of “Stigmatized Properties: When Murder Kills Property Values”. You get the idea.





Title: Beautiful Broken Girls
Author: Kim Savage
Format: Digital ARC
Source: Netgalley 

So, I have been sitting here trying desperately to put my thoughts about this book into words.  I enjoyed this book, but much like it's title, while Beautiful Broken Girls is a hauntingly beautiful story, there were some parts that just didn't work for me...that were broken.

Having never read any of Kim Savage's work, I was really looking forward to reading this one because I've heard such great thing about her writing.  And she definitely is a talented writer with vivid (sometimes almost too vivid) descriptions and emotion poured into each page and character.  Yet somehow, this book just didn't wow me as I hoped it would when I read the blurb and saw the cover.

There is no doubt that Beautiful Broken Girls is a heavy and emotional story.  After the girl he loves, Mira, and her sister are found dead, Ben is desperate to know why and what happened.  Much to his surprise, Mira has left Ben a series of notes in locations where he had once touched her that he hopes will provide him with some answers.  Ben, driven to find these answers embarks on this scavenger hunt, but with each new note, he is only left with more questions as he replays every moment he spent with Mira and her family.  

Through flashbacks from both Ben and the girls' perspective we are slowly given hints of what might have happened and led to the death of the girls as we learn more about Ben and the other characters in the story; characters, who definitely seem to have their own motives for finding (or not finding) out what went on with these girls. At times, the flashbacks were a bit confusing and vague leaving me with more questions than answers, but like pieces of a puzzle they eventually come together to form the whole picture...a picture I definitely wasn't expecting and that didn't quite work for me.  

The book tackles several emotional subjects and I don't want to spoil things, but this is definitely not a light read.  The story also took some strange and unexpected twists and turns that left me wondering where exactly it was going and what I had missed.  Just when you think you might have it figured out...nope, here comes a new curveball as we learn something new about the characters.  Each new revelation kept me reading because I had to know what was going on and whether or not it was relevant to the whole story.  I became as determined as Ben to find out exactly what had happened to these girls as well as wanting to know more about other characters.

However, while the premise of Beautiful Broken Girls had such promise and I enjoyed the story, I found myself feeling a bit let down and I am not even sure I could pinpoint exactly why.  The story was interesting, if not what I had hoped for or expected, and the writing was lovely so while this book was not really for me, I would (and will) definitely try other books by the author.  It was a good, if not great, book that I enjoyed reading, but not what I was expecting.  But like all books, other readers might have a different take on things.


*I received a free Digital ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.*












Comfort Books - Review 
Bibliobibuli YA - Q&A 




A Reading Nurse - Review 



Giveaway!
Win 1 of 5 Copies of Beautiful Broken Girls
US/Canada only
a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Fantastic Flying Book Club

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Blog Tour: Bookburners...Review!

Today I am so excited to tell you about this fun and fascinating book called, Bookburners!

I'll admit at almost 800 pages, it may look a little intimidating, but the more you learn about it and the concept behind it, the size of the book makes sense.  And you'll soon be flying through those pages...at least I did...because it's such an intriguing story. Kind of like Supernatural meets Criminal Minds...or at least, that's how it felt to me.


Anyway, here is a little about the book...


From Amazon:

The critically acclaimed urban fantasy about a secret team of agents that hunts down dangerous books containing deadly magic—previously released serially online by Serial Box, now available in print for the first time!

Magic is real, and hungry. It’s trapped in ancient texts and artifacts, and only a few who discover it survive to fight back. Detective Sal Brooks is a survivor. She joins a Vatican-backed black-ops anti-magic squad—Team Three of the Societas Librorum Occultorum—and together they stand between humanity and the magical apocalypse. Some call them the Bookburners. They don’t like the label.

Supernatural meets The Da Vinci Code in a fast-paced, kickass character driven novel chock-full of magic, mystery, and mayhem, written collaboratively by a team of some of the best writers working in fantasy.

To buy



--Max Gladstone:

MAX GLADSTONE has been thrown from a horse in Mongolia, drank almond milk with monks on Wudang Shan, and wrecked a bicycle in Angkor Wat. Max is also the author of the Craft Sequence of books about undead gods and skeletal law wizards—Full Fathom Five, Three Parts Dead, Two Serpents Rise, and Last First Snow. Max fools everyone by actually writing novels in the coffee shops of Davis Square in Somerville, MA. His dreams are much nicer than you’d expect. He tweets as @maxgladstone. Bookburners, which he wrote with Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty, and Brian Francis Slattery, is available from Saga Press in January.

--Margaret Dunlap:

Before joining the Bookburners, MARGARET DUNLAP wrote for ABC Family’s cult-hit The Middleman in addition to working on SyFy’s Eureka. Most recently, she was a writer and co-executive producer of the Emmy-winning transmedia series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and co-created its sequel Welcome to Sanditon. Her short fiction has previously appeared in Shimmer Magazine. Margaret lives in Los Angeles where she taunts the rest of the team with local weather reports and waits for the earthquake that will finally turn Burbank into oceanfront property. She tweets as @spyscribe. Bookburners, which she wrote with Max Gladstone, Mur Lafferty, and Brian Francis Slattery, is available from Saga Press in January.

--Mur Lafferty:

MUR LAFFERTY is the author of The Shambling Guides series from Orbit, including the Netfix-optioned The Shambling Guide to New York City and Ghost Train to New Orleans. She has been a podcaster for over 10 years, running award-winning shows such as I Should Be Writing and novellas published via podcast. She has written for RPGs, video games, and short animation. She lives in Durham, NC where she attends Durham Bulls baseball games and regularly pets two dogs. Her family regrets her Dragon Age addiction and wishes for her to get help. She tweets as @mightymur. Bookburners, which she wrote with Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, and Brian Francis Slattery, is available from Saga Press in January.

--Brian Francis Slattery:

BRIAN FRANCIS SLATTERY is the author of Spaceman Blues, Liberation, Lost Everything, and The Family Hightower. Lost Everything won the Philip K. Dick Award in 2012. He’s the arts and culture editor for the New Haven Independent, an editor for the New Haven Review, and a freelance editor for a few not-so-secret public policy think tanks. He also plays music constantly with a few different groups in a bunch of different genres. He has settled with his family just outside of New Haven and admits that elevation above sea level was one of the factors he took into account. For one week out of every year, he enjoys living completely without electricity. Bookburners, which he wrote with Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, and Mur Lafferty, is available from Saga Press in January.



Title: Bookburners
Created by: Max Gladstone
Written by: Max Gladstone, Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty, & Brian Francis Lafferty
Format: Print Book
Source: Irish Banana Blog Tour/Publisher 

Hmm...where to start with this review...

Well, I guess first I should tell you that Bookburners was originally published as individual stories, or rather episodes as they are called, on SerialBox, a website that allows users to subscribe to different book series and just like with TV, you get a new and different episode each week that is part of the series.  Now the episodes of Bookburners have been published all together for the first time in a print book.

And when I say it's like a TV series, I mean exactly that. Each entry in Bookburners, or episode as they are called in the book, follows the same core  group of characters as they hunt for books possessed by demons.  Every episode features a new and interesting case as well as adding to the overall story arc of the series...just like a TV Show.  And that's exactly how it felt, like I was watching a TV Show rather than reading a book.  So the size of the book may look a bit intimidating at first with 16 episodes and almost 800 pages, but reading Bookburners felt like binge-watching a season of a favorite TV show.  And just like my TV binges, I enjoyed every minute I spent reading this urban fantasy and couldn't wait to see what happened next.

Created by Max Gladstone and with entries from Margaret Dunlap, Mur Lafferty, Brian Francis Slattery, as well as Gladstone, Bookburners takes readers on a thrilling and fun ride as a group of demon hunters who secretly work for the Catholic Church hunt down books that contain demons.  Once a book is opened, the demon has the ability to take possession of a body and wreak havoc. It's the Bookburners' (a name given to them by their enemies) job to track down the book and destroy it before it can cause too much harm...but that can be very tricky and sometimes deadly.

The series gets off to a fascinating, action-packed start with the very first episode introducing readers to Sal, a police detective who had been living a pretty normal life until her brother Perry gets her caught up in this whole demon hunter business. I can't say a lot without spoiling things, but Sal's love for Perry leads her to start working with Team 3 from the Vatican hunting down demons and the books.

The Team consists of several characters from different walks of life with distinct personalities, traits, and strengths including Sal and other intriguing characters. Each has his or her own motivations for working on the team and with each episode we learn more about each of them and these motivations as well as getting to see the Team in action as they interact with demons and each other.  We also get to meet several other characters along the way and learn more about the various demons...and there a lot of different demons to be faced by our motley team of unlikely heroes. I don't want to say too
much because it could spoil it for new readers.

It was all quite enjoyable to read and I flew through the almost 800 pages with ease as I eagerly looked forward to what new challenge Sal and the Team would face with each episode and wondered about the main plot that each author managed to weave into each episode (Like I said, I really don't want to spoil things so I won't elaborate).

However, I have to admit that at first, I was worried that the series might feel a bit disjointed with different authors with different styles writing about the same characters and storyline, but that was soon forgotten as each author managed to not only bring these characters to life, but also write a pretty cohesive story.  From the first fast-paced entry from Gladstone to the very last (also by Gladstone) each episode offers a unique perspective on the story and characters while still continuing the overall story arc of Sal, her brother, and The Bookburners.  I could easily tell which author wrote each episode by their distinct voice, but it never affected the continuity of the overall story for me, which I was happy to see.

And just like with episodes of a TV show, some episodes in Bookburners, are stronger than others, however, overall they manage to provide a fun and thrilling adventure filled with twists and turns as each author adds to the story and its characters.  I was very pleased with Bookburners and its unique style of storytelling and I have to say that if it was an actual TV show, I'd definitely be watching.  For now, I am content to just read about Sal and the others.  The ending promises for more adventures with our crew...and I am happy to say that Season 2 is already on Serial Box!




*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

Does it sound like something you'd enjoy?

You can purchase Bookburners at the following:

And check out Serial Box for more about this series, as well as others.

And be sure to check out the other stops on the Tour for more info!



Happy Reading!!!!