LAUNCH WEEK: The Surrogate Sea by Danielle E. Shipley

Guys, I can’t believe it’s time for another Wilderhark Tales release already! Where does the time go? Thank God, right? Today marks the release day of Danielle E. Shipley‘s sixth Wilderhark Tales book The Surrogate Sea! Next to the most beautiful cover you will ever lay eyes on, this book is fabulous in and of its own. (My review of this gem is going up on Saturday along with a giveaway, but until then, you have 5 more reviews of The Swan Prince, The Stone Kingdom, The Seventh Spell, The Spell Caster and The Sun’s Rival to look forward too. Or, you know, you could always buy the whole series in the meantime here and here! Alas, enough of my Shipley extravaganza schedule, and on with some info on everything you can expect from the wickedly awesome The Surrogate Sea! HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY, DANIELLE!

Also don’t forget to check out Danielle in the wild:

  Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads

 

 

 

BOOK REVIEW: The Swan Prince by Danielle E. Shipley

Series: The Wilderhark Tales #1
Publication Date: May 23rd 2013 by Ever On Word
Genres: fantasy
My Rating: 5 Stars
AMAZON – BARNES & NOBLE

Catching her leg in a bear trap proves the least of Sula’s worries. Haunted by an enchanted monster from a past she dare not reveal, and hounded by the perilously perceptive young village doctor, Villem Deere, the headstrong girl of the woods gambles with fate by binding hers to that of Sigmund, the captivating orphan boy with mysterious nightly business of his own.
An enchantress’s curse turns a spoiled royal into a beast; a princess’s pricked finger places her under a hundred-year spell; bales of straw are spun as golden as the singing harp whisked down a giant beanstalk – all within sight of Wilderhark, the forest that’s seen it all. You’ve heard the stories – of young men scaling rope-like braids to assist the tower-bound damsel; of gorgeous gowns appearing just in time for a midnight ball; of frog princes, and swan princes, and princes saved from drowning by maidens of the sea. Tales of magic. Tales of adventure. Most of all, tales of true love. Once upon a time, you knew them as fairytales. Know them now as Wilderhark’s.

Here’s a thing you have to know about me to understand my adoration for Danielle E. Shipley’s Wilderhark Tales series: I grew up to walls and walls of fairy tale books. My mother had the most peculiar and most famous fairy tales alike all in one massive bookshelf, and as a child, it was like a towering wall of wonders and magic to little old me. Now, here’s the thing about Shipley as a writer that you need to know: her stories are re-imaginings of fairy tales a la Brothers Grimm, but what makes them stand out from so many other writers that chose to retell tales as old as time is that Shipley manages to draw you into her world from the very first sentence and won’t let go of you until the very last.
The Swan Prince tells the story of two rather peculiar teenage characters, Sula and Sigmund, two orphans looking for an escape from the magic that binds them. Villem Deere, a young doctor, is positively convinced there’s foul play at work when both of them disappear from the village orphanage, and begins to investigate the fantastical chasms that open up along the way for a rather enchanting and off-the-charts reveal (that I didn’t see coming, even though I knew it was coming, if that even makes sense, ha!)
While the words I’d use to describe Shipley’s writing would be in the likes of wonderful, magical, bewitching and luminescent, her characters – while meeting all those definitions, too – shine. Sula, for one, is an incredible dauntless, fierce, lonely and dainty character all at the same time, and I’m using these in nothing but a positive connotation. What I love about Sula was that she was likeable and unlikable, an arbitrary young girl, a human being. She wasn’t this absolute or that, she was simply real, which made her incredible. While Sigmund started out as the mysteriously charming male opposite, Villem stole the show for me because I had no idea what to expect from him. I didn’t know what kind of fairy tale role he’d eventually take on because he was just so peculiar, and while his point of view was super entertaining to read because I imagined him as this über-curious, weird doctor, I didn’t even notice the moment I fell hopelessly in love with him and began to consider him a friend. Shipley paints real human beings as her characters and writes them in such a way that in spite of their flaws, you begin to immerse yourself in them so much so that you literally whoop! when that off-the-charts reveal takes place by the end. She has an uncanny way to know what you want as a reader, when you don’t even know it yourself. Her characters and world-building make you forget that you know of all the fairy tales, and has you genuinely surprised at all the turns and twists in the story. When I first read The Swan Prince, and I have done so many, many times now, I entirely forgot I knew the stories behind her inspiration. The ending managed to surprise me, even, and it was the most peculiar thing to happen to me in a long time.
Basically, each book of the Wilderhark Tales is an individual pillar in my sanctuary from real-life. Shipley’s words soothe and encourage and paint such a vivid magic that has you escape into her story without much ado other than her terrific writing. Now, I’m not much of a religious person, I’m a very disillusioned-by-the-horrors-of-the-world type of girl, but whenever I pick up The Swan Prince, that part of me disappears and doesn’t come out until I’ve devoured the words cover to cover.
I don’t believe in fate. Not at all. I met Ms. Shipley and her books by way of chance. And every time I pick up a copy for a reread, I can’t help but think that maybe a teeny tiny bit of fate played along anyway, because as a writer, Shipley’s books have saved me countless of times from really bad days with their phantasmal quests and unique action heroes and heroines. They’re little gems in a whole sea of present fairy tale galore, and their magic cannot and shouldn’t be ignored by anyone. They’re escapes from a rather dull and magic-less life, and a book that sucks you in and gives you all the peace in the world for the time you’re reading it is a very powerful book in my opinion. (Danielle, if you’re reading this, please make all your books the length of The Surrogate Sea from now on so that I can bask in them a little bit longer.)

COVER REVEAL PUZZLE: Nowhere But Here by Katie McGarry

West Side Story meets Sons of Anarchy?? Yes, please!

Katie McGarry‘s newest novel, NOWHERE BUT HERE, has a cover and I’m thrilled to get to help reveal it to you today. The first novel in her upcoming The Thunder Road Series, NOWHERE BUT HERE is a young adult contemporary romance that will keep you turning the pages long into the night. Considering my HUGE fondness for everything Katie pens, I have no doubt that this will be a swoon-worthy, heart-breaking and yet encouraging motorcycle ride of a story!

Follow along today as pieces of the cover are revealed, and then stop by the HarlequinTeen Page to see the full cover at 7pm EST! And that’s not all, of course! We have a few Behind-The-Scenes pictures from the photo shoot itself for you to enjoy as well! Check out the Behind-The-Scenes pictures and then scroll down for our puzzle piece!

 

And here’s the ninth piece to the cover for you!

NOWHERE BUT HERE Synopsis:

An unforgettable new series from acclaimed author Katie McGarry about taking risks, opening your heart and ending up in a place you never imagined possible

Seventeen-year-old Emily likes her life the way it is: doting parents, good friends, good school in a safe neighborhood. Sure, she’s curious about her biological father—the one who chose life in a motorcycle club, the Reign of Terror, over being a parent—but that doesn’t mean she wants to be a part of his world. But when a reluctant visit turns to an extended summer vacation among relatives she never knew she had, one thing becomes clear: nothing is what it seems. Not the club, not her secret-keeping father and not Oz, a guy with suck-me-in blue eyes who can help her understand them both.

Oz wants one thing: to join the Reign of Terror. They’re the good guys. They protect people. They’re…family. And while Emily—the gorgeous and sheltered daughter of the club’s most respected member—is in town, he’s gonna prove it to her. So when her father asks him to keep her safe from a rival club with a score to settle, Oz knows it’s his shot at his dream. What he doesn’t count on is that Emily just might turn that dream upside down.

No one wants them to be together. But sometimes the right person is the one you least expect, and the road you fear the most is the one that leads you home.

Add it to your Goodreads Now!

Preorder NOWHERE BUT HERE

Amazon ** Kobo ** BAM ** Barnes and Noble ** iBooks ** IndieBound

Katie McGarry was a teenager during the age of grunge and boy bands and remembers those years as the best and worst of her life. She is a lover of music, happy endings, reality television, and is a secret University of Kentucky basketball fan.

Katie is the author of full length YA novels, PUSHING THE LIMITS, DARE YOU TO, CRASH INTO YOU, TAKE ME ON, BREAKING THE RULES, and NOWHERE BUT HERE and the e-novellas, CROSSING THE LINE and RED AT NIGHT. Her debut YA novel, PUSHING THE LIMITS was a 2012 Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction, a RT Magazine’s 2012 Reviewer’s Choice Awards Nominee for Young Adult Contemporary Novel, a double Rita Finalist, and a 2013 YALSA Top Ten Teen Pick. DARE YOU TO was also a Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction and won RT Magazine’s Reviewer’s Choice Best Book Award for Young Adult Contemporary fiction in 2013.

Website ** Twitter ** Facebook ** Goodreads ** Pinterest ** Tumbler ** Instagram

WAITING ON WEDNESDAY: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

My Waiting On Wednesday choice for this week is V.E. Schwab‘s upcoming release A Darker Shade of Magic hitting bookshelves on February 24th 2015 through Tor Books! Since Schwab’s Vicious has become one of my favourite books ever with its super-villains and their super-vendettas this November (I read it in one sitting and fell deeply, deeply in love with the story and characters and basically even the paper it was printed on, it’s THAT GOOD!), it’s no surprise that Schwab’s next book has already enthralled me with its synopsis and beautiful, beautiful cover! If you haven’t yet read a Schwab book, I beg of you, do so, because without this writer in your life, you’re definitely missing something as a reader! Also don’t forget to check out ADSOM and to add it to your TBR piles if you fancy!

Kell is one of the last Travelers—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes—as such, he can choose where he lands. There’s Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, ruled by a mad King George. Then there’s Red London, where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London, ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne—a place where people fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London…but no one speaks of that now. Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see—a dangerous hobby, and one that has set him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations, who first robs him, then saves him from a dangerous enemy, and then forces him to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure. But perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, Kell and Lila will first need to stay alive—and that is proving trickier than they hoped.

TEASER TUESDAY: The Winner’s Crime by Marie Rutkoski

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Should Be Reading, and this week’s pick is from Marie Rutkoski‘s upcoming The Winner’s Crime, second book of her The Winner’s Curse trilogy to be released March 3rd 2015 through Farrar Straus Giroux. This book has completely captured my feels, and I can’t wait to post my review once we’re closer to release! I hope you enjoy this little teaser until then!

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two “teaser” sentences from that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists!

He was waiting in the reception hall. A lone figure lost in the vast, vaulted chamber.

HAPPY RELEASE DAY: Breaking The Rules by Katie McGarry

The first time I read Katie McGarry‘s novel Pushing The Limits, I instantly fell in love not just with the story, but with the characters and their turmoils and delights and all in-betweens. Her two leads, Noah and Echo, became my favourite characters (and ultimate OTP) in such a short span of time that reading them felt like they became a part of me, and saying goodbye to them was heartbreaking. I have reread Pushing The Limits many times over the years whenever life became too overwhelming, and it has always managed to pull me out of the deep ends I found myself in. Noah and Echo have helped me so much, and I always wished that, in spite of the great sequels that McGarry released in the meantime, someday, we would get to enjoy a sequel just for Noah and Echo, and alas, it is here! Katie McGarry has answered all her readers wishes and Breaking The Rules, published by Harlequin Teen, is finally out, so excuse me while I go snuggle up in bed with my two favourites and enjoy their love story some more! Happy release day, Katie!

For new high school graduate Echo Emerson, a summer road trip out west with her boyfriend means getting away and forgetting what makes her so . . . different. It means seeing cool sights while selling her art at galleries along the way. And most of all, it means almost three months alone with Noah Hutchins, the hot, smart, soul-battered guy who’s never judged her. Echo and Noah share everything–except the one thing Echo’s just not ready for. But when the source of Echo’s constant nightmares comes back into her life, she has to make some tough decisions about what she really wants–even as foster kid Noah’s search for his last remaining relatives forces them both to confront some serious truths about life, love, and themselves. Now, with one week left before college orientation, jobs and real life, Echo must decide if Noah’s more than the bad-boy fling everyone warned her he’d be. And the last leg of an amazing road trip will turn . . . seriously epic.

Enjoy a great teaser from the story below!

FROM NOAH’S POV
“Did you fall into some paint, Echo?” Isaiah asks, changing the subject.
Echo’s shoulder slumps as she pivots toward the mirror. She groans as she touches her cheek and forehead that are more red and pink than skin. “Dang it. Why am I such a mess?”
“I think it’s sexy as hell,” I say.
“I think I’m going to barf,” Beth mocks my tone.
Death radiates from the look I send her way. Enough that it should melt her. “Ever sleep in a tent, Beth?”
Beth focuses on the screen while raising her middle finger in my direction.
“Screw it.” Echo turns away from the mirror. “I need a shower.”
I smile, Echo blushes, then I laugh. Damn me for inviting Isaiah and Beth to share our room.
“Anyhow.” An excited glint strikes Echo’s eyes. “Are you ready? I hope you like it. It’s sort of…for you. But it’s not done, okay? I mean, something like this would actually take a while to perfect, so I guess I’m saying—”
“Echo.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s all good.”
“Okay.” Her fingers drum nervously over the top of the canvas before she repeats, “Okay.”
“I’m assuming that’s not the constellation Aires?”
“No. I’ll have to start on that tomorrow.” With a deep inhale, Echo pulls out a chair from the table and rests the painting on the arms and leans it against the back so it will stay upright.
Air rushes out of my body, and I sink onto our bed. It’s the same damned shock as when she drew my parents this past spring. There’s awe and joy and this ache that hits deep in my gut. I bend forward and rest my joint hands on my knees and stare at the sight in front of me.
Fuck me, my eyes burn. I shut them, attempting to get my shit together. It’s a painting. Only a painting. I reopen them, and it’s the same disorientation as a right hook to the head. It’s more than a painting, and that’s the reason my throat swells.
Last night meant as much to me as it did to her and she painted it, capturing it in a way unique to Echo. She’s right, it’s not done. It’s a skeleton compared to her other work, but I see enough to know what she desires, what she plans to design. Up close all those colors would look like chaos, but when viewed as a whole it creates this beautiful picture. In the end, that’s the best way to describe me and Echo, our relationship. Our love.
The bed dips as Echo eases onto it, settles behind me and props her chin on my shoulder. Her signature scent that reminds me of walking into a bakery becomes an invisible blanket surrounding me. “What do you think?”
“It’s us,” I whisper, and knots form in my stomach. Echo always finds a way to blow my mind. She tenses behind me and I continue, “It’s where we spent last night.”
“It is.” Echo relaxes, and her fingers curl around my biceps. “Do you like it?”
Struggling for composure, I place my hand over hers and pause. “It’s…”
I’m not Echo. I don’t have words for what happens inside me. If I did, I’d fail at describing this. I shift to rest my forehead against hers. “I don’t deserve you.”
“That’s my statement,” she says so only I can hear. “I wish we were alone again.”
I press my lips to hers, slide my hand through her hair and watch as the curls bounce back into place. “Me, too.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Katie McGarry was a teenager during the age of grunge and boy bands and remembers those years as the best and worst of her life. She is a lover of music, happy endings, reality television, and is a secret University of Kentucky basketball fan. Katie is the author of full length YA novels, PUSHING THE LIMITS, DARE YOU TO, CRASH INTO YOU, TAKE ME ON,  BREAKING THE RULES, and NOWHERE BUT HERE and the e-novellas, CROSSING THE LINE and RED AT NIGHT. Her debut YA novel, PUSHING THE LIMITS was a 2012 Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction, a RT Magazine’s 2012 Reviewer’s Choice Awards Nominee for Young Adult Contemporary Novel, a double Rita Finalist, and a 2013 YALSA Top Ten Teen Pick. DARE YOU TO was also a Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction and won RT Magazine’s Reviewer’s Choice Best Book Award for Young Adult Contemporary fiction in 2013.

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads / Pinterest / Tumblr / Instagram

Be sure to check out all of the books in the series on McGarry’s Goodreads profile above, you do not want to miss these amazing young adult contemporaries in your library! Happy book birthday, Katie, and thank you for all your words that have encouraged so many!  Here’s to Noah and Echo and how it all began!

LAUNCH WEEK: The Sun’s Rival by Danielle E. Shipley

Well, if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you’ve probably already encountered my love for everything Danielle E. Shipley, who has quickly become one of my very favourite writers with her The Wilderhark Tales series and Inspired standalone. On December 2nd, the fifth book set in the Wilderhark universe, The Sun’s Rival, was released, and because Danielle’s books continue to inspire me, I’m spreading the Wilderhark cheer this gloomy Monday afternoon with this launch week post! Check out the series, its newest novella with a little excerpt, Danielle the author, and a gorgeous giveaway! Danielle retells fairy tales, and her stories are sweet, short and imbued with lots of magic, soul and words that capture it all so perfectly, you can’t help but feel entirely happy, content and at home in her setting! Reading her books is most definitely worth it!

 

 

Also don’t forget to check out Danielle in the wild:

  Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads

 

You can also check out Danielle’s Goodreads Author page here and directly find her books at Amazon and Barnes & Noble for purchase here and here! Alas, I hope you guys fall as enchanted as I have with this series, and look forward to my upcoming reviews!

 

ARC REVIEW: The 52nd by Dela

Standalone
Publication Date:  October 28th 2014 by Wise Ink Creative Publishing
Genres: Young adult, supernatural, contemporary, romance
My Rating: 3 Stars
AMAZON – BARNES & NOBLE – BOOK DEPOSITORY

 Not one of the sacrifices chosen over the long history had survived–until now. On the tip of the Yucatan peninsula, the immortal Castillo family gathers in Tulum. Weary and haunted, they receive the names of fifty-two human sacrifices chosen once every fifty-two years for the Underworld, a tradition thought to have disappeared with the fall of the Aztec and Mayan empires. Driving home one night, college freshman Zara Moss swerves to avoid hitting a ghastly figure in the road. Lucas Castillo witnesses the car crash, but when it comes time to supervise her abduction from the wreckage, he intervenes. Something is different about Zara: Lucas has been having dreams of her arrival for five hundred years. As Lucas and Zara come together to put an end to the bloody sacrifices, they discover that the ancient tradition isn’t so easily broken. The gods are angry, and they have until the Winter Solstice to drag Zara to the Underworld.

Oh Dela, I am definitely adding you to my debut-authors-to-watch list after finishing The 52nd. Now, I’ve been pretty excited about this book for some time considering it’s the first young adult read that I have come across in my last decade of reading that features tales of Aztec and Mayan mythology. But this is not the only thing that makes this gloomy, ghostly apocalyptic contemporary so interesting to experience.
The 52nd tells the story of Zara Moss, a girl set to embark on her first year in college who one night is involved in a car accident that leaves her for almost dead, only to be rescued by an odd stranger she has flimsy memories of after her recovery. Zara soon finds herself emerged in a war between Aztec ghosts and Mayan Gods and their age-old war for the souls of men, and part of a prophecy that might help destroy the brutal cycle of sacrifices made in the name of the Underworld that Zara seems to be the last and 52nd victim of. With the help of Lucas and his immortal family, Zara tries to stay alive long enough in order to change the world by Winter Solstice.
Something that immediately struck me while reading Dela’s debut was the fact that while, yes, there are a bunch of YA paranormal tropes that seem to orbit around her work, it still sucked me right in. I was supposed to read the first chapter on a day busy with work, but found myself over 150 pages in a couple of hours later simply because I wanted, no, I needed to know what was going to happen and in what kind of world both leads Zara and Lucas would end up in. The thing that really made The 52nd such a compelling read was the fact that I for myself had zero knowledge of Aztec and Mayan mythology and history prior to picking this book up. Dela managed to paint a mythic picture of brutal sacrifices, ghost towns in the heart of the jungle and terrifying grimaces that had me immediately emerged in-between the setting of a modern-day US of A and a mythical mirror world that became more and more conflated. I was able to picture all her settings perfectly, and absolutely loved that they were true depictions of violence rather than a watered down version for the sake of age category. Dela’s writing was great to just be in the setting myself, almost like being part of my own dream sequence.
Although I had trouble connecting with Zara throughout most of the book because she seemed too smooth as a human being, I loved Lucas the more. It was awesome that Dela managed to actually depict him as a gorgeous, Adonis-looking immortal without turning him into a joke. Lucas treated Zara like an average mortal girl he found attractive, and only over time began to fall in love with her. The way he assessed her and deemed her not special in comparison to his immortality was a nice touch that added a whole lot of bonus points to the story. He wanted her physically, she wanted him physically, and even though their meeting was prophesied, their connection didn’t just come out of the blue or was based on a dreaded insta-love moment. They were attracted to each other, and Dela built from that realistically according to their ages. I thoroughly enjoyed all the descriptions of the characters (and their tattoos) because they made honest-to-God sense in the mythology of the story and were such a big part of the creeptastic atmosphere of it – big bonus points for sticking to that and adding two incredibly awesome pets to the whole shenanigan, as well as a seriously captivating underwordly villain that gave me the creeps and made me love him simultaneously. My twisted, twisted soul had wished there’d been more of him, but what we got was pretty awesomesauce, too. While the story started to lack the drive it had at the beginning somewhere in the middle, it managed to pull itself together for the finale in a way I was really exited about. I just wish there were more time for more Gods and tales and stories, because damn, that mythology was one awesome background to built a story around.
For everyone who loves young adult supernatural set in our modern day, I’d recommend The 52nd simply because damn, its unique setting makes up for what it is sometimes lacking. At times I felt overwhelmed by all the characters, especially Lucas’ family members, and it would’ve been nice to have a smaller pool of them just to lower some confusion throughout. However, the story in and of itself was so intricately and well bound to the setting, I gladly overlooked that aspect for the dreamy quality of the atmosphere. With this being Dela’s debut novel, I can say she did a great job of it, especially considering how well she managed to introduce me to an entire history of a different religion I had absolutely no clue whatsoever about. She managed to do so with such vivacity that I gladly overlooked character development deficits and plot twists I saw coming from a mile away. If you want a fall read that is entirely new, yet still familiar enough you can be sure you’ll enjoy it for the genre that it is, The 52nd is the next read for you. It’s dark and light, brutal and cute, and definitely an enjoyable and at times really positively weird read.