10/06/2016

In Which I Interview the Genius that Brought You The Weight of Feathers... // Blog Tour: When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

Hey everyone! Welcome to my post for the When the Moon Was Our's blog tour! So, I got a chance to interview the author Anna-Marie McLemore and I am really excited for everyone to read her responses to my questions. When the Moon Was Our's talks about two best friends (and something more??) who both have pretty interesting pasts. Also, magical realism, which is something I'm always interested in! Definitely check this book out and I hope you enjoy the interview. :)

When the Moon Was Ours

Author: Anna-Marie McLemore

Pages: 288

Publisher: Thomas Dunne

Release Date: October 4th 2016

When the Moon Was Ours follows two characters through a story that has multicultural elements and magical realism, but also has central LGBT themes—a transgender boy, the best friend he’s falling in love with, and both of them deciding how they want to define themselves. To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel’s wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees, and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel’s skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they’re willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.

Goodreads

Interview with Anna-Marie McLemore

1. Hi Anna and welcome to Next Page Please! To kick off this interview, let's start with an easy question. You've written magical realism before. How was writing the magical realism in When the Moon Was Ours different than the magical realism in The Weight of Feathers?

Thank you so much for having me! The magical realism in both stories emerged from both setting and character, but I think a major difference was how many characters shaped and interacted with the sense of the magical. The Weight of Feathers has a cast of two extended families and so many of them have complicated relationships with their own bloodlines. When the Moon Was Ours has a central cast of just eight main characters, and they all come up against each other in some way, which sparks a lot of the magical elements in the story.

2. One of the main characters, is transgender. What was it like writing about a transgender LGBT character and why do you think it's important to have more LGBTQ+ characters?

My husband is a transgender guy, so I felt a tremendous responsibility to honor his identity and his community. There are more and more wonderful books coming out with LGBTQ+ characters, which I’m thrilled to see, but I hope we continue to see more intersectional queer stories so all readers can find themselves on bookshelves.

3. If Sam and Miel were to meet the main characters of The Weight of Feathers, Lace and Cluck, who do you think would be instant best friends?

I think Sam and Cluck would get along right away, and I think Sam and Lace would too. Lace and Miel would take longer to warm up to each other, but would after a while. And Cluck and Miel have a lot in common that would make them friends, but it would take them a long time to trust each other enough to talk about it.

4. What books do you recommend for people who enjoy When the Moon Was Ours?

I think the best way for me to answer that is to name some books that have inspired me. Laura Ruby’s Bone Gap and Nova Ren Suma’s The Walls Around Us for their beautiful blurring of reality and dream-like narrative. Aisha Saeed’s Written in the Stars for the gorgeous way she depicts characters’ complicated relationships with their families and family histories. Laura Resau’s books for how she shows the interaction of different cultural heritages.

5. Thanks so much Anna for being here today to answer some questions. Huge congrats on the publication of When the Moon Was Ours! To finish off this interview tell the world, what are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading a lot of books set in the 1920s as research for my story in the upcoming anthology The Radical Element. And then I have a TBR of recent YA releases that I’m so excited to get to!

5/18/2016

You've Heard of My True Love Gave to Me! Now Get Ready to Meet It's Summer Sister // Blog Tour: Summer Days and Summer Nights (Interview with Editor Stephanie Perkins!)

Summer Days and Summer Nights

Author: Stephanie Perkins and Various Authors

Pages: 400

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Release Date: May 17th 2016

Maybe it's the long, lazy days, or maybe it's the heat making everyone a little bit crazy. Whatever the reason, summer is the perfect time for love to bloom. Summer Days & Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories, written by twelve bestselling young adult writers and edited by the international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins, will have you dreaming of sunset strolls by the lake. So set out your beach chair and grab your sunglasses. You have twelve reasons this summer to soak up the sun and fall in love. Featuring stories by Leigh Bardugo, Francesca Lia Block, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Brandy Colbert, Tim Federle, Lev Grossman, Nina LaCour, Stephanie Perkins, Veronica Roth, Jon Skovron, and Jennifer E. Smith.

Goodreads

Interview with Stephanie

1. Why did you decide to bring these particular authors together for this anthology?

I reached out to authors who are writing stories that I love. All of them have strong voices and—whether or not they primarily write romance—a kind and romantic heart.

The crazy and fantastic thing is that there are literally dozens of other YA authors who also fit this description. There are so many talented, inspiring writers in this industry! I had to make some tough decisions, and a lot of it just came down to keeping a balance between the genres.

2. How does editing a short story collection compare to writing a full-length novel? Did your process as an author influence your process as an editor?

It’s easier. A lot easier. I only had to come up with original content for 1/12th of the 400 pages! My writing process is slow and generally agonizing, so . . . yeah. It’s just not even close. But it’s a huge part of the reason why I love to edit. I’m a slow drafter, and I prefer the tinkering, shimmering stages of editing and revising. It’s where a good story becomes great. My nitpicky brain loves working on that level—finding a better word, a tighter theme, a more developed character, a more textured setting. And I absolutely love helping other authors to find their own deeper, truer stories.

I think most authors become a better editor as they become a better writer. I’m the opposite. I started off with stronger editorial skills, and, as they improve, they’re helping me to become a better writer.

But, being an author, I will say that when I’m wearing my editorial hat, I heap a LOT of praise onto the other authors. I leave tons of notes for them in the margins and mark every single passage or phrase that I love. Writing is difficult work, and I always appreciate it when my own editors take the time to mark their favorite bits. Praise also shows me how to revise my work! It teaches me which parts are the good parts! And that’s revising in a nutshell: adding more good parts, removing the bad parts.

3. What are your thoughts on summer romances?

Naturally juicy! When you’re a teenager, they’re often fleeting and filled with drama. So much can happen over a single summer. You can reinvent yourself. There’s magic in that.

4. What can we expect to see from you next? Are there any plans of releasing a new full-length novel soon?

My next novel is a teen slasher, which hopefully (if I finish it on time!) will be published next year. I’m having such a blast writing in the horror genre. And it’s honestly not as big of a departure as it seems.

There’s still an attractive boy, an intriguing setting, and quippy friends. It just also contains a lot of murder.

5. What are your favorite summer love stories?

Several of the authors in my two anthologies have written swoony summer romances. A few that immediately spring to mind: I’m pretty sure all of Jennifer E. Smith’s books take place over summer (The Geography of You and Me is a favorite), as well as Nina LaCour’s The Disenchantments and Everything Leads to You, and Jenny Han’s Summer series, starting with The Summer I Turned Pretty.

6. If readers could take away one thing from having read Summer Days And Summer Nights what would you hope it would be?

It always sounds corny, but . . . hope is the hope. No matter what’s going on in your life right now—and as teenagers, so much of your life is out of your own control—it will get better. You’ll get more control, you’ll get to make more choices. Make good choices. Learn from your mistakes. I promise—with every single fiber of my heart—that life gets better. There is always hope.

4/29/2016

Blog Tour: The Star Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi (Review and Interview!)

The Star Touched Queen

Author: Roshani Chokshi

Pages: 352

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Release Date: April 26th 2016

Fate and fortune. Power and passion. What does it take to be the queen of a kingdom when you're only seventeen? Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of Death and Destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father's kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran's queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar's wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire... But Akaran has its own secrets -- thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most. . .including herself. A lush and vivid story that is steeped in Indian folklore and mythology. The Star-Touched Queen is a novel that no reader will soon forget.

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I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts are not altered by that.

I knew The Star Touched Queen was going to be an interesting book from when I read the synopsis. There is just so much from the synopsis that leaves you asking questions about this book and wanting to find out more about it. More about Maya's curse, more about Akaran, and Maya's life in general. The Star Touched Queen delivered such a great story. It had a really interesting plot and a world that I would definitely not mind having a spin off take place in. (Update: Turns out Roshani will be having a spin off of The Star Touched Queen. Whoo!) Roshani had really great writing and I really enjoyed the characters she wrote about. If you're looking for a really suspenseful and mysterious novel with based on a really interesting Indian folktale, I would definitely hand you The Star Touched Queen.

So, you can obviously tell I loved this book. One of the reasons was because of how great and interesting the characters were. From the beginning, we already know Maya is cursed with a horrible horoscope, which is taken really seriously by the people in Maya's life. She really grows within this book, which is one of the highlights. She gets to know herself more and also gets to experience what it is like to not live in her palace walls. I really love how she doesn't take crap from anyone. All her life people have been putting her down because of her horoscope and that leads to her development of relying on herself to get through tough situations. She is so independent and I really love that about her. There are so many other characters introduced in this book and they were all so interesting and all I loved how different from each other they were. No character was every similar to the next one. Interesting characters for an interesting book, am I right? I also really loved reading about how they impacted the plot and Maya's life.

Now, here is my favorite part about this book. The plot. Going into this book, I didn't know much on what was going to happen. I only had so many questions that needed to be answered. As the book progresses, it get's more and more mysterious. That really added more suspense and made the book really hard to put down. That's really all I could say. Some books I could write paragraphs on how good it was but with Star Touched, there isn't much to say because it's very easy to describe. Basically, the more pages you read in, the more questions you have and the more the suspense will build up.

I gave this book 5 stars because I fully enjoyed it. It had awesome characters, a great world, and a really suspenseful plot.

4/08/2016

Blog Tour: Dreamology by Lucy Keating (Review and Giveaway!)

2/29/2016

Blog Tour: A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

Hello everyone and welcome to the last day of February! (Can you believe it's here already?!) Today, I am super excited to be hosting a Study in Charlotte blog tour stop where Brittany Cavallaro will be talking about A Study in Charlotte in a guest post and also a giveaway. Definitely enter if you're interested and make sure to check out the rest of the tour. This tour was hosted by the Fantastic Flying Book Club.

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A Study in Charlotte

The last thing sixteen-year-old Jamie Watson–writer and great-great-grandson of the John Watson–wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s enigmatic, fiercely independent great-great-granddaughter, who’s inherited not just his genius but also his vices, volatile temperament, and expertly hidden vulnerability. Charlotte has been the object of his fascination for as long as he can remember–but from the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else.Then a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Holmes stories, and Jamie and Charlotte become the prime suspects. Convinced they’re being framed, they must race against the police to conduct their own investigation. As danger mounts, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe and the only people they can trust are each other.Equal parts tender, thrilling, and hilarious, A Study in Charlotte is the first in a trilogy brimming with wit and edge-of-the-seat suspense.

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A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE is my first mystery novel. This means that writing it almost killed me. Though I studied fiction and poetry through undergrad and grad school, poetry was always my main focus (and, in fact, my first book is a collection of poems called GIRL-KING). With a poem, you focus a lot on language, beginnings and endings. You think about each word individually, about what white space you leave on the page. Plot isn’t ever really a consideration, and so it’s still a mystery to me (ha) why I decided to tackle a detective novel. I mean, the long and short of it was that I love Sherlock Holmes and was determined to put my own spin on the story, but it was a bit like jumping directly into a pot of boiling water.

Things I knew I wanted the story to have: a girl Holmes, a boy Watson, a boarding school both like and very unlike the one I had attended as a teenager, and one murdered rugby jerk. I built the premise from there. In fiction, I tend to write the first forty pages before I plot the book to make sure I’m working with a voice I like and can fully inhabit, and that it’s a story I do in fact want to tell. I also knew I wanted the murder to be announced at the end of the first chapter. Once I had those first forty pages and knew that my Holmes and Watson would be framed for murder by a killer using the original stories to frame them, I decided which of those stories I wanted to use in the book (and if they could be applied to a boarding school setting), and plotted the book around them.

That’s just for the events of the plot, though. I knew when I was writing this first book that I wanted it to be a series (and had all my fingers crossed that I’d be asked to write more than one), so building the arc of Jamie and Charlotte’s relationship was paramount. I plotted both their inner lives along with the case that they were solving. I knew where I wanted them to end up emotionally at the end of this first book, and I wrote to that end point. Hopefully you’ll want to know as much as what happens to the two of them as what happens, mystery-wise, in book two!

2/28/2016

Blog Tour: Bluescreen by Dan Wells (Interview and Giveaway!)

Hello and welcome to my stop for Bluescreen's blog tour! Super excited to be featuring this book and I hope you guys enjoy the interview I have with Dan today. Make sure to check out the Bluescreen and if you're interested, enter the giveaway at the end of this post! This tour was hosted by The Fantastic Flying Book Club.

Bluescreen

Los Angeles in 2050 is a city of open doors, as long as you have the right connections. That connection is a djinni—a smart device implanted right in a person’s head. In a world where virtually everyone is online twenty-four hours a day, this connection is like oxygen—and a world like that presents plenty of opportunities for someone who knows how to manipulate it. Marisa Carneseca is one of those people. She might spend her days in Mirador, the small, vibrant LA neighborhood where her family owns a restaurant, but she lives on the net—going to school, playing games, hanging out, or doing things of more questionable legality with her friends Sahara and Anja. And it’s Anja who first gets her hands on Bluescreen—a virtual drug that plugs right into a person’s djinni and delivers a massive, non-chemical, completely safe high. But in this city, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is, and Mari and her friends soon find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy that is much bigger than they ever suspected. Dan Wells, author of the New York Times bestselling Partials Sequence, returns with a stunning new vision of the near future—a breathless cyber-thriller where privacy is the world’s most rare resource and nothing, not even the thoughts in our heads, is safe.

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1. Hi Dan! Thanks so much for being here today, super excited to have you. For my first question, I would love to know what you did in celebration of the release of Bluescreen?

I'm a man of simple pleasures, so I celebrated this book the way I prefer to celebrate most things: hanging out with my friends and family, eating food and playing board games.

2.What are you most excited for readers to read about?

That's a great question, because the things that excited me changed as I wrote the book. In the beginning it was the world that thrilled me, and the technologies and the intriguing new realities the characters have to deal with, and then as I wrote I got more and more into the plot, and all the exciting things the characters have to go through and the solutions they come up with to save the day. By the end of the book, though, and this might be obvious by this point in the paragraph, it was the characters themselves that I really loved: their personalities, their ingenuity, and more than anything their friendship. Marisa and her friends will do anything for each other, and those friendships get tested a lot in this book, but they always come through, and I like to think they always will.

3. Describe your thoughts on Bluescreen's cover in six words.

The Most Freaking Beautiful Thing Ever

4. What struggles did you come across and how did you overcome them?

One of the big problems I faced was a problem that everyone eventually runs into when they try to depict computer hackers in a book or a movie: hacking is just not visually interesting. I had to do a lot of research to get it technically correct, and then I actually had to back down from some of that realism to keep it entertaining. It's not a perfect balance, and I'm still working on it (the hacking in book 2, for example, I think works much, much better), but I'm pleased with what I've done and I hope readers like it.

5. If you were to be brought to the Bluescreen world, what would be the first thing you would do?

Get a djinni, absolutely. Not only are they amazing pieces of technology that can do everything I've ever wanted a computer to do, but the world of BLUESCREEN is designed around them, and doesn't even function well for people who don't have one. Bao can live without one, and more power to him, but I want a djinni :)

6. Thank you Dan for being here today! For my final questions, I would like to know, what is one common thing you share with your protagonist?

We're both planners--we get eager and we get fired up and sometimes we shoot our mouths off, but we don't like rushing into things without a plan. Sometimes that makes us slow to respond, or hard to convince, or a little too willing to let something slide because we can't think of a good way to deal with it, but when everything's clicking and we have a good plan, we're unstoppable.

1/25/2016

Blog Tour: The Year We Fell Apart by Emily Martin

Hey everyone and welcome to today's stop of The Year We Fell Apart blog tour! I'm super excited about this book and what this post features. I hope you guys enjoy this guest post and make sure to enter the giveaway at the bottom of the post! This tour was hosted by the Fantasy Flying Book Club.

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The Year We Fell Apart

In the tradition of Sarah Dessen, this powerful debut novel is a compelling portrait of a young girl coping with her mother’s cancer as she figures out how to learn from—and fix—her past. Few things come as naturally to Harper as epic mistakes. In the past year she was kicked off the swim team, earned a reputation as Carson High’s easiest hook-up, and officially became the black sheep of her family. But her worst mistake was destroying her relationship with her best friend, Declan. Now, after two semesters of silence, Declan is home from boarding school for the summer. Everything about him is different—he’s taller, stronger…more handsome. Harper has changed, too, especially in the wake of her mom’s cancer diagnosis. While Declan wants nothing to do with Harper, he’s still Declan, her Declan, and the only person she wants to talk to about what’s really going on. But he’s also the one person she’s lost the right to seek comfort from. As their mutual friends and shared histories draw them together again, Harper and Declan must decide which parts of their past are still salvageable, and which parts they’ll have to let go of once and for all. In this honest and affecting tale of friendship and first love, Emily Martin brings to vivid life the trials and struggles of high school and the ability to learn from past mistakes over the course of one steamy North Carolina summer.

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Thoughts and Story Behind the Cover for The Year We Fell Apart

Emily Martin

So, I haven't exactly made it a secret that I'm completely smitten with my cover. I was very fortunate in that my editor and the team at S&S kept me in the loop o Martinn cover design, and I had the opportunity to see it evolve from sketch to final product, which was awesome.

This was the second "final" iteration of the cover--the first was lovely as well, a different take on an illustrated tree, with the title carved into the stump. But ultimately it was decided that the first cover was a bit too young and didn't capture the depth and scope of the story. On to version number two!

I'll admit, I loved the first iteration, and was super sad to lose it. ...Until I heard what they had in mind for the new cover design. The design team was able to work with the artist Sarah Dennis, who creates her illustrations using cut paper, which I adore. I pulled a bunch of images from the story that felt particularly relevant, including the oak tree leaves from Harper and Declan's treehouse, and the water image representing the quarry where they go swimming. Developing the final product was a very collaborative process between my editor, the S&S design team, and the incredible illustrator. And in the end, it turned out more beautiful than I could have imagined! I couldn't be happier, and feel the wonderful details perfectly reflect the history between Harper and Declan.

I hope you like it, too!

Emily Henry

Emily Martin lives and writes in the Greater Boston area, though she will always call Michigan home. She has a penchant for impromptu dance parties, vintage clothing, and traveling to new places. When not writing, she can be found hiking New England’s peaks, searching for the perfect cup of hot chocolate, or baking something pumpkin-flavored. Emily’s debut young adult novel, THE YEAR WE FELL APART, comes out January 26, 2016 from Simon Pulse. Her work is represented by Lara Perkins of Andrea Brown Literary.

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1/21/2016

Blog Tour: Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace (Review and Giveaway!)

Hello and welcome to the Shallow Graves Blog Tour, held by the lovely ladies at Fantasy Flying Book Club! Today, I am going to be talking about my thoughts on Shallow Graves, a book I had really been anticipating. Hope you enjoy and make sure to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this post!

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Shallow Graves

For fans of Holly Black and Nova Ren Suma, a gripping, hauntingly atmospheric novel about murder, revenge, and a world where monsters—human and otherwise—lurk at the fringes. When seventeen-year-old Breezy Lin wakes up in a shallow grave one year after her death, she doesn’t remember who killed her or why. All she knows is that she’s somehow conscious—and not only that, she’s able to sense who around her is hiding a murderous past. In life, Breezy was always drawn to the elegance of the universe and the mystery of the stars. Now she must set out to find answers and discover what is to become of her in the gritty, dangerous world to which she now belongs—where killers hide in plain sight and a sinister cult is hunting for strange creatures like her. What she finds is at once empowering, redemptive, and dangerous. Tense, complex, and wholly engaging, Shallow Graves is a stunning first novel from Kali Wallace.

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I got an eARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. None of my thoughts are altered by this.

I was pretty excited about Shallow Graves thanks to its synopsis. I mean who wouldn't want to read about a girl who comes back from the dead and doesn't remember anything that had to do with her death? Shallow Graves was a really great read. It definitely was not what I expected it to be but I enjoyed it nevertheless. Some very interesting aspects were introduced and I also really liked the characters that showed up in the book and helped Breezy in her coming back from the dead. It was a great paranormal, but I also really loved the mysterious feeling this book gave off, especially with Breezy not remembering who had killed, why she was dead, and why she is even alive. All in all, it was a pretty good read and readers of paranormal will definitely enjoy Shallow Graves.

Breezy was definitely an interesting character to be reading from. Yeah, because she is a person who is now back from the dead but also because she is a mixture of different people. She is so calm and collected but also loves to have fun. She screws around sometimes, but is also a huge astronomy person. I had definitely not expected that from her and it was a pleasant surprise. Her character development within this book was really well written. I really love how Kali writes about that as she begins to learn more about why she is alive and get used to her abilities and what she can now do. I love the position she is in at the end of the book and it really showed how much she has grown due to her situation and that she is okay.

I mentioned that this book wasn't what I expected it to be and that pretty much came within the plot. I really enjoyed it, but it went in directions that I definitely didn't expect it to. This plot was just as great though. I loved how suspenseful it was and also shady, shall I say. The whole situation this plot had was so shady and at one point I had to keep reading because I needed to find out everything behind this shadiness.

(Image Source)

I really enjoyed the writing style Kali wrote in! It went from talking in the past then back to real life and this allowed me to read from both the present but also read some stories about Breezy's past. It was definitely different from writing styles I had read from before and it really allows Shallow Grave to stand out a bit.

There are two things that brought my review down however. 1) The pacing was a bit slow for a while before things started going on and that really let getting into this book take a little longer than I hoped. After that little period of pages, when it was slower, it got faster and it was a lot easier to get into it! 2) The ending kind of bugs me a bit. It was going so well but ended so quickly and kind of felt a bit incomplete. I have so many questions on what happens to x character and what happens to Breezy. It ended but it didn't tie up the story as much as I had hoped it would.

I gave this book 3.5 stars because I really enjoyed the plot and characters but the pacing was a bit off and the ending bugged me a bit.

1/09/2016