Fantasy Five Friday: Interview Heidi R Kling

27 Jan

I am super excited to have one of my all time favorite authors, Heidi R Kling, by the blog today for another Fantasy Five Friday!

Heidi R Kling is the author of Sea as well as the series, The Spellspinners of Melas County. Witch’s Brew, the first book, came out last week! She also has short stories in three anthologies, Truth & Dare, The Visitors Guide to Mystic Falls, and The First Time. You can find her on the web at her website, Goodreads, and Twitter.

Here’s a bit about Witch’s Brew:

Spellspinners is an “Active Fiction” title, a new type of e-book from Coliloquy. In this Active Fiction series, your input influences future books from this author. Specifically, in Spellspinners, your input influences what happens to star-crossed lovers Logan & Lily. Spellspinners is a young adult series about a witch, a warlock & their forbidden love. Once soulmates, the witch & warlock covens have been estranged for a century. Twice a year, their teens meet in the Solstice Stones, a magical battleground, to draw energy from each other. Logan & Lily have trained their whole lives for the Stones. In Witch’s Brew, Lily is torn between her feelings for Logan & her loyalty to her coven. The lovers race against time, their distrust for each other & their powerful elders to unravel the mystery of the past before their future is destroyed. While Lily & Logan’s fate may be decided, the author explores several paths to get there. The author sees the aggregate statistics on what option gets picked the most, so the more you read, the more you influence what she writes!

Could you give us the one sentence pitch of your book?

A witch, a warlock, and their fight to save their magic–and their forbidden love.

Since you have a fantasy novel, the next question I obviously have to ask is: If you were a fantastical creature, which would you be?

While I would LOVE to be a witch like Lily, I’m going to go with my first reaction: a unicorn. (Sorry Team Zombie.)

Do you have a favorite fantasy read?

Most recently I’ve liked A Discovery of Witches–can’t wait for the sequel!

Generally speaking, which comes first: the world, the characters, or the plot?

This go round it was the world. I could see it with such shimmering clarity. I knew from the get-go I wanted to combine nature’s innate magical elements with supernatural charms and enchantment. Setting the Spellspinners series in a modern beach town make perfect sense to me. There’s something so magical about the ocean and the coastal redwoods near where I live.

And then, once the town and the plot were in place, the characters popped into the places they intrinsically belonged.

They are always coming out with new editions of board games. If your book could be a special edition of any board game, which would you choose?

Oooh AWESOME question. How about a Spellspinner edition of MONOPOLY. Where players can gain a power, lose a power? Confront Jacob and Lose A Life?

Or Chess. A Logan chess piece. Now that’d be cool. :D

Thanks so much for stopping by Heidi! And I would LOVE that edition of Monopoly or a Logan chess piece! :) Make sure to check out my review of Witch’s Brew, which I absolutely adored!

Buy Witch’s Brew

From the Back of My Shelf (9): Purge by Sarah Darer Littman

27 Jan

From the Back of My Shelf is a bi-monthly event, that happens on the 2nd and 4th Fridays of the month where you pull a book from the back of your shelf (with a 2009 release or prior) and review it. It’s a way to read some of those books that have been gathering dust while new books came out. Feel free to join in and participate, and link your reviews up in the Mr Linky below. Check out more in my intro post here here.

Purge
Sarah Darer Littman
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Release Date: April 1, 2009
Pages: 240

Rating: 4 stars

Janie Ryman hates throwing up. So why does she binge eat and then stick her fingers down her throat several times a day? That’s what the doctors and psychiatrists at Golden Slopes hope to help her discover. But first Janie must survive everyday conflicts between the Barfers and the Starvers, attempts by the head psychiatrist to fish painful memories out of her emotional waters, and shifting friendships and alliances among the kids in the ward.

Purge was a book I really enjoyed – It feels weird to say I enjoyed it, given the subject matter, but Sarah Darer Littman has written a book filled with such hope and a positive message for teens.

I really liked the characters. I thought Janie, and all the other teens at Golden Slopes. They all were very different, but I found them all very easy to connect to. No, I haven’t  gone through the same things as they had been through, but so many contributing factors to their situation I have experienced in some manners, making it really easy to relate to all of them. I really liked Tom. He was hands down my favorite character of the book. I also really liked Brad, he definitely played a smaller role, but I just loved the one scene he was in.

Each chapter started with an entry from Janie’s diary, and I thought it was a really neat format. The diary entries were very different from the regular narrative, as it was not only here thoughts, but also a lot of Janie’s back story. The one thing I wasn’t too crazy about was how Janie referred to everyone as a Puker or a Starver. It just felt a bit odd to me, and it was almost like there was like a battle between the two.

Purge’s plot was very sad at times, but it had such an element of hope throughout most of it. There were so many touching scenes. I found Nurse Joe to be hilarious and he helped Janie a lot when no one else was really succeeding. Any scene with Tom was just great, he always brought something new to a scene

I really liked Purge. I thought it was a book that addressed a very important topic, and that Sarah Darer Littman really succeeded in writing about it. This is my first Sarah Darer Littman read, but after Purge, I am very anxious to pick up another!

Did you do a From the Back of My Shelf post? Link it here :)

Dead Letter Office by Kira Snyder

26 Jan

Dead Letter Office (Parish Mail #1)
Kira Snyder
Publisher: Coliloquy
Release Date: January 11, 2012

Rating: 4.5 stars

When Celia’s father is killed in Afghanistan, she moves with her mother to New Orleans, the city where her father grew up. Struggling to adjust and haunted by troubling dreams, Celia finds comfort in new friends like Tilly, a practicing witch, and Donovan, the son of police detective. On Halloween, bizarre supernatural occurrences rock the city. Celia meets the mysterious Luc and finds a letter, over a hundred years old, addressed to her.

The paranormal repercussions continue when Celia learns that Luc is the restless spirit of a young man murdered in 1854, only able to assume solid form at night. And then, to her shock, Celia finds that the letter, which describes the suspected murder of a man in 1870, contains uncanny parallels to the present-day death of Abel Sims, a homeless veteran.

With help from Luc, Tilly, and Donovan, Celia races to solve the murder—and the mystery of the letter—using both magical and forensic clues.

I have been so impressed by Coliloquy thus far, because their books are just fantastic! And Dead Letter Office was no exception!  Dead Letter Office was such a great read and I am very excited to hear more from Kira Snyder and the wonderful cast of Dead Letter Office.

The plot of this one was so unique - it wasn't quite like anything I have read before. I loved Kira Snyder's portrayal of ghosts, as it was very cool.  Discovering what would happen next and trying to figure out what exactly was going down was just so fun. There wasn't a lot of predictability to the story - which was another great thing about it. There was a love square as well, which made things pretty interesting. It didn't get too much or overtake the story, like I sometimes feel they can.

Something else cool about this one was all the choices! There were SO many paths I could choose, and every time I had to make a choice, I was stuck going AH! I want both. So I ended up going up and reading both of some of the paths, just so I could see how each panned out.

I loved the characters. They were just so great. Celia was such a fun main character. Her sidekick Tilly was just as great, with her spunk and curious nature. I loved that I could never really figure out Luc. I liked him, but he really kept that sense of mystery about him. Donovan wasn't the  character you could easily peg out either, yet was so good natured.

I am very excited to see more of this series. This one was just SO great, and I cannot recommend it enough. Once I started it, putting it down was painful, because I was that addicted to the story.

Book Trailers: Lies Beneath and Born Wicked

26 Jan

So many awesome book trailers have come out lately, so I felt the need to share some of my favorites!

Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown.

Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans, killing them to absorb their energy. But this summer the underwater clan targets Jason Hancock out of pure revenge. They blame Hancock for their mother’s death and have been waiting a long time for him to return to his family’s homestead on the lake. Hancock has a fear of water, so to lure him in, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock’s daughter, Lily. Easy enough—especially as Calder has lots of practice using his irresistable good looks and charm on ususpecting girls. Only this time Calder screws everything up: he falls for Lily—just as Lily starts to suspect that there’s more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined. And just as his sisters are losing patience with him.

Find out more on Goodreads.

Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they’re witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it would mean an asylum, a prison ship—or an early grave.

Before her mother died, Cate promised to protect her sisters. But with only six months left to choose between marriage and the Sisterhood, she might not be able to keep her word . . . especially after she finds her mother’s diary, uncovering a secret that could spell her family’s destruction. Desperate to find alternatives to their fate, Cate starts scouring banned books and questioning rebellious new friends, all while juggling tea parties, shocking marriage proposals, and a forbidden romance with the completely unsuitable Finn Belastra.

If what her mother wrote is true, the Cahill girls aren’t safe. Not from the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood—not even from each other.

Find out more on Goodreads.

Aren’t these trailers fabulous? What do you guys think?

Waiting on Wednesday (136) – Auracle by Gina Rosati

25 Jan

Waiting on Wednesday is a topic brought to life by Jill over at Breaking the Spine. With Waiting On Wednesday you get to introduce to everyone upcoming books you’re excited about!

Auracle by Gina Rosati coming August 8, 2012 from Roaring Book Press

On the surface, there’s nothing remarkable about Anna Rogan: She gets average grades, she’s not especially fashionable, she spends most of her time just hanging out with her best friend Rei. But Anna does have a remarkable secret: she has the ability to do astral projection. She uses her out-of-body experiences to explore the universe, until one day when there’s an accident at school and her classmate Taylor gets into her body. Now Taylor’s using her new identity to accuse an innocent boy of murder and she shows no signs of leaving Anna’s body. The only person who knows Anna’s secret is Rei, and as her feelings for Rei grow she must face a future where they can never touch…unless they can get find a way to get Taylor out of Anna’s body, stop the murder trial, and discover the true nature of Anna’s power

I love the synopses, sounds like it would be right up my alley!  I am so curious to see how the story will play out – how cool does it sound? Plus, Auracle’s cover is definitely among my favorites!

What are you guys waiting on?

Arcania by Liz Maverick

25 Jan

Arcania (Trial by Fire #1)
Liz Maverick
Publisher: Coliloquy
Release Date: January 11, 2012

Rating: 4.5 stars

A young adult fantasy series about an underachieving teen thrust into an MMO-like world of magical combat, where she must master her own genetic gifts while investigating her twin sister’s suspicious death.

This was a super cool book. It was fantasy, but definitely had a bit of a sci-fi feel to it for me! I loved the characters and the plot. It was a great read and start to a series, and will only take off from here.

When I first started reading, I was a bit confused. It took a bit of reading and then I was able to more fully grasp what was going on. The set up of the story is very intriguing, so I can’t wait to see where the story will continue to go. Certain aspects of the plot were not as developed as much as I would have liked, but I’m hoping those will be sorted out in future books.

The world was super cool as well. I would love to know more about the different planes and Arcania, as I didn’t get a real great idea of what it was like. It was part of the experience I feel like, since Adia is so lost and not filled in on all the happenings, so I was discovering things along with her. As Adia grows in Arcania, I am super intrigued to see more about the world, the plots, and the Ether.

I really liked the characters. The only one I wasn’t crazy about was Minka, something about her was just off for me. Finola, Grey, and Seger were hands down the best characters of the book. I loved all three, and while I liked the other characters, they were just too awesome. I really hope to see a lot more of them in the next book. Adia was an interesting main character; I hope she grows a lot as the series continues, as she was a bit weak at times. It was almost a bit cliche with the “my sister is the talented one and I will be the under achiever”.

Needless to say I am very excited for book 2! Its release cannot come fast enough. The ending was a killer – the plot is built, and I cannot say how awesome I feel the next book will be. Arcania for me had a few bumpy spots, yet for me, all of that was forgiven with the awesome plot and the wonderful characters. For the most part while I was reading I just wanted to read more and find out what was happening, what was next, and who was behind what.

The Edumacation of Jay Baker by Jay Clark

24 Jan

The Edumacation of Jay Baker
Jay Clark
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Release Date: January 31, 2012
Pages: 240

Rating: 3.5 stars

Meet Jay Baker . . . or, as he is not-so-affectionately called by his opponent in the freshman class presidential election (and by members of the high school football team): Gay Baker.

A few important things to know about Jay:

1. He is in love with his best friend, cheerleading dynamo Cameo “Appearance” Parnell.

2. He is rocking an unfortunate case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

3. He has the largest storehouse of pop culture references, jokes, and puns in the history of fifteen-year-olds.

4. He is about to uncover a horrifying family secret that will turn his world upside down.

Root for Jay as he faces off against his mortal enemy, gets awkward around his dream girl, loses himself in a Bermudan love triangle, watches his parents’ relationship implode in a series of Maury Povich-inspired events, and, finally, learns to get real and be himself.

The Edumacation of Jay Baker was a cute read. It had a slow beginning, but once the story picked up I really enjoyed it. The Edumacation of Jay Baker was a story that I could realistically see going on in high school and was a lot of fun to read.

The first of half of this one was very slow. It took me awhile to get into the story. Once it picked up in the second half, I really enjoyed the story more. This book was definitely funny – I was laughing for a good part of the book. The funny parts are balanced with the serious undertone of the plot, dealing with divorce, family issues, and friend issues.

The characters were great. Even the characters like Alice, who only appeared in one scene, really stuck out in my mind. Abby, Cameo, and Caroline totally sold this book! They were just great characters. They all had their moments of vulnerability or a moment where they don’t make the best decision, but I really liked the three of them! The faults in them made them that cooler of characters. Ms. Lambert was also a pretty cool character – definitely one of the best teachers you could have!

For me, this wasn’t a superb read, but it was still a very promising debut and I’m curious to see more from Jay Clark. If you are looking for a book that is funny and tells a good story, then this is the one for you.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Fantasy Books

24 Jan

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and Bookish. Each week features a different topic, and you make a top ten list about it. This week is a freebie week and I am posting about my top ten fantasies of all time.

#1 goes to Harry Potter (I think that’s a given!)

I grew up with these books and they created my love for reading and fantasy.

The Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind

I am quite obsessed with this series. I’ve been through several phases where all I did is reread this series or part of the series for several months. It is wicked good, and is super long (meaning you have a lot of reading to do and that is wonderful!)

Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken

There is just something so special about this book. It has the most charming world, wonderful characters, and a story worth telling.

Spellfall by Katherine Roberts

I read this book over ten years ago (that is WEIRD to think about!) and I still love rereading it today. It is a super fun urban fantasy read, mixed with a lot of high fantasy elements. It takes place both in the world we know and another world, and I loved every page.

The Echorium Sequence by Katherine Roberts

An epic high fantasy trilogy is what this is! Each book follows slightly different characters, yet they are all very tightly woven together. I have been through numerous copies of these books, because I read them so much!

The Gemma Doyle Trilogy

This is historical AND fantasy – which therefore making it all sorts of awesome in my mind. I fell in love with this trilogy and read it over and over again. The world is enchanting.

Those are my top 6 fantasies like ever. Onward to other books…

Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton

This book is a kick-ass urban fantasy with a ton of action and I just loved it! It was a very promising start to the trilogy and a spectacular debut!

The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa

This is a great quest-ish series with a completely new spin on faeries. Plus, this series has Ash, knowing that should be enough to make you want to read it. There is also a really cool cat. I adore this series.

Nightspell by Leah Cypess

This book was just wonderful. It had this super creative plot that had me guessing what would happen next! The world was super fascinating.

Everlasting by Angie Frazier

This is another historical fantasy and leads Camille and Oscar on an adventure! It was so much fun to read!

I love the excuse to talk fantasy any chance I can get, so when I saw the freebie week naturally I had to talk fantasy. If you love fantasy too, I’m hosting a reading challenge for the year, which you should check out :)

Do you have any favorite fantasies? Share them in the comments! :)

Giveaway: The Way We Fall + Minimergency Kit

23 Jan

I have a super exciting giveaway of The Way We Fall and a minimergency kit! My review of The Way We Fall will be going up later today.

Here’s a bit about the book if you haven’t heard:

It starts with an itch you just can’t shake.

Then comes a fever and a tickle in your throat.

A few days later, you’ll be blabbing your secrets and chatting with strangers like they’re old friends.  Three more, and the paranoid hallucinations kick in.

And then you’re dead.

When a deadly virus begins to sweep through sixteen-year-old Kaelyn’s community, the government quarantines her island—no one can leave, and no one can come back.

Those still healthy must fight for dwindling supplies, or lose all chance of survival. As everything familiar comes crashing down, Kaelyn joins forces with a former rival and discovers a new love in the midst of heartbreak. When the virus starts to rob her of friends and family, she clings to the belief that there must be a way to save the people she holds dearest.

Because how will she go on if there isn’t?

Megan Crewe is the author of Give Up the Ghost and The Way We Fall. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two cats. You can find her on the web at her website, Facebook, Goodreads, blog, and twitter.

Also, be sure to check out the trailer!

Fill out the rafflecopter below to enter – Ends February 4th and open to US Only.

Continue reading →

What YA release this week are you most excited for? (16)

23 Jan

I couldn’t find as many releases this week as there have been weeks past, but there still are some great looking books coming out this week.

Vote in the poll and weigh in in the comments.

What YA release this week are you most excited for?
Forbidden by Syrie James and Ryan M James
There Is No Dog by Meg Rosoff
Fallen in Love by Lauren Kate
Daughter of the Centaurs by Kate Klimo
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