Fire & Ice: Misty Provencher Guest Post + Giveaway!

Fiery Hot Reads for Icy Cold Nights or Fire and Ice for short, is an event thought up and largely put together by Heidi at Rainy Day Ramblings.  But this year I have decided to help co-host so there will be 4 of us! Heidi@Rainy Day Ramblings,  Maja@The Nocturnal Library, Ali@My Guilty Obsession and myself will be running the event this year.  From February 8-15th we are featuring spicy, romance books to get you ready for Valentine's Day.  We will be highlighting romantic reads all week by doing blog guest posts, interviews and daily giveaways on our blogs.

You can also check out the Giveaway Hop where over 30 blogs are hosting giveaways.

Here are the other stops for today.
Heidi@Rainy Day Ramblings: Cambria Hebert: Tipsy: Take it Off Series
Ginny@Gin's Book Notes:Marie Astor: Smitten at First Sight

Today I'm excited to welcome one of my most favorite authors to the blog, Misty Provencher!  Misty recently released a new book and I'm currently reading it and it's awesome!  I'll include details about it at the end of this post where you can enter to win your own copy!

Thank you for having me over for Fire & Ice,  Candace!  It’s always an honor to come and hang out at your blog!

So, I’m supposed to do a Top 10 of my favorite romances.  Hmmmm.  This is going to be rough.  I feel like it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t start old school and work our way forward, so you guys understand where my twisted influences came from.

• 1.      Forever by Judy Blume ~ Judy schooled me on how not to go screaming the first time I saw a penis.  Thank God for Judy Blume.  Things would’ve been catastrophic without her.

• 2.      Touch the Wind by Janet Dailey ~ It was the first adult romance I ever read, given to me by a girl named Jennifer, in my freshman year of high school.  I had been reading Shakespeare and the Classics at that point and WHEW…Touch the Wind was a whole different kind of read!

• 3.      Ehm…one word:  Edward.

• 4.      Chime by Franny Billingsley ~ I’ve long fan-girled the book because the relationship between Briony and Eldric was so beautifully written.  I mean, wow.

• 5.      Speaking of wow, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins has another amazingly real relationship going on between the pages.  And his name: Etienne.  Ohhhhhh gorgeous.

• 6.      Madeline Sheehan’s Undeniable, well, now we’re moving into my dirty little pleasures.  Gritty, but amazing, I didn’t want to swap places with Eva, but I wanted to eavesdrop on her whole life, all the same.  If you like bad boys, it doesn’t get any badder than Sheehan’s Deuce.

• 7.      Except maybe CJ Roberts’s Caleb from Captive in the Dark.  That was one twisted tale that I just couldn’t put down.  I’m talking WHOA.

• 8.      Karina Halle gave me a double dude wallop in Sins & Needles.  Cameron and Javier…you pick which flavor you want.  I just took the double scoop of hot on hot myself.

• 9.      Ten Tiny Breaths by K.A. Tucker…check out Trent.  I loved the character development and the slow burn of the romance. 

• 10.   It wouldn’t be a list without JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood.  I mean, if you haven’t heard about it, read it, re-read it, and eaten the pages?  Then, you’re just wasting your life.  MUST READ!!

Ok, Candace, I hope these are what you are looking for.  These books just happened to pop into my head first, but there’s so many!  I’ve just read Amanda Jason’s Lucky Number Four – three steamy roommates - and loved it!  Michelle Leighton just came out with another steamer too, All the Pretty Poses that I must read soon as well as Samantha Young’s new title, Before Jamaica Lane.  SO MANY BOOKS TO LOVE!!  I hope readers will save room for Diem, my sexy ass dragon trainer from The Fly House too…he’s wicked good at handling dragons and even better with a woman!

happy sigh

Thank you so much for having me over to play again.  I loved reliving my book boyfriends with you!

Thanks for stopping by Misty!

The Earth’s atmosphere is swiss cheese. To avoid the oncoming oxygen crisis, black-sheep heiress, Maeve Aypotu, has been chemically suspended in one of the Archive’s plush, multi-million dollar chambers, located underground. Scientists claim they can patch everything up in about 15 years, so, just to be safe, the Archive programmed the chambers to open in 17 years.

And then, everything on Earth went wrong.

Up on the surface, Pluto has taken control of the planet, scorching away all signs of human civilization and reconstructing the environment to suit the Plutian’s lucrative dragon trade. Humans that survived are forced to be laborers, divided into five Houses, each handling a different stage of the dragon harvest. Survival and repopulation have become a currency among the Houses. To make matters worse, Rha Diem, the rugged leader of the Fly House, has gotten word that the cost of existence just rose to a price that no human should have to pay. And now there is a whole Archive of survivors that will be expected to pay too.

Learning to trust one another may need to start small—with the fusion of one powerful Rha and one bad ass black sheep—before a damaged race can even hope to regain control of their alien Earth.

Misty is giving away an ebook copy of The Fly House to one of you!  Must be 16 or older to enter. Open worldwide.  Fill out the rafflecopter to enter!

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The Sound of Letting Go Blog Tour: Guest Post by Stasia Kehoe & Giveaway!

Today I'm incredibly excited to be part of the tour for The Sound of Letting Go by Stasia Kehoe. I have Stasia here for a guest post, but before we get to that, let me tell you about how I met Stasia. I met her before she had any books released yet. Her book, Audition, was going to release in the fall (we met in July 2011) and she was at an event with author Holly Cupala whom I was planning to meet up with. The event was for a bunch of other YA authors so we were all in the audience. After the event I found Holly and met Stasia. I have a bag that I have authors sign and I asked Stasia to sign it and I was the first person to ask for her autograph! So of course we had to take pictures and stuff. It was a great time. Since then I have met Stasia at other events and went to lunch with her before an event here in Portland (with other authors as well). She's been awesome to chat with and every time I visit Seattle I let her know. I'm very excited to have been asked to host a stop on her tour and I hope you enjoy!

On Being a Writer-Mom


As a child of the seventies, I was unsurprised by Harry Potter since I had long wished for Sabrina of "Bewitched's" magical twitching nose to make my bed and find me love. I had enjoyed reading books and writing poetry from a young age. But it wasn't until I had children that this pleasure turned into a passion--a compulsion--to see my own stories in print.

As I journeyed from aspiring writer to published novelist, I became a member of a distinguished club of professional diaper-changers with excellent grammar and time management skills...and dreams at least as powerful as Justin Bieber's visions of pop stardom. I became a writer mom.

Some of my dearest friends are writer-moms, too. They've published stories about dystopian worlds ruled by computers, about terrifying zombies, about nerdy girls who fall in love with handsome lifeguard boys. Their books are created in stolen moments while toddlers nap and laundry tumbles over the tops of hampers. They revise manuscripts while serving their kids microwave chicken nuggets and pre-packaged carrot sticks. They negotiate book deals with their agents while riding on school buses chaperoning field trips (true story).

They have compromised. They sometimes fail to send in cookies for school bake sales or to volunteer for PTA events. But they have shown their children something amazing: that with determination and dedication, a person can reach her goal. Tucked inside memory boxes, alongside their kids’ baby footprints and grade school artwork, are actual published novels often dedicated to those same children--children who can tell their friends that "my mom writes books." These children know, not from fairy tales or "esteem building" school assemblies, but because they have lived it, that a woman can make her own dream come true. From that perspective, the occasional months-overdue haircut and take-out dinner seems a small price to pay.

Do you share my dream? Have you murmured to yourself those dangerous words: "Someday" or "When I have more time"? Today is the day you put those negative phrases to bed. Today is the day you metamorphose from "mom" to "writer mom." Today is the day excuses end and the first sentence of your very first manuscript blossoms on the page.

Because, if you truly want to be a writer, a writer you will be.

Stasia Ward Kehoe’s second novel, THE SOUND OF LETTING GO, will be published this Thursday, February 6, 2013, by Viking. She continues to parent a college student, a high school student, a middle-school student and a second-grader. She is a queen of crock-pot cookery and believes nothing in the kitchen is too precious to go into the dishwasher. Except the dog. Visit her online at www.swardkehoe.blogspot.com.
 

About the Book:

For sixteen years, Daisy has been good. A good daughter, helping out with her autistic younger brother uncomplainingly. A good friend, even when her best friend makes her feel like a third wheel. When her parents announce they’re sending her brother to an institution—without consulting her—Daisy’s furious, and decides the best way to be a good sister is to start being bad. She quits jazz band and orchestra, slacks in school, and falls for bad-boy Dave.

But one person won’t let Daisy forget who she used to be: Irish exchange student and brilliant musician Cal. Does she want the bad boy or the prodigy? Should she side with her parents or protect her brother? How can she know when to hold on and when—and how—to let go?

ENTER TO WIN…a signed first edition of THE SOUND OF LETTING GO, one of four different TsoLG Swag Packs, or a pair of author-designed custom Keds sneakers (size 8)

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Guest Post: Author Jordan Jacobs on Travel and Istanbul

Today I want to welcome author Jordan Jacobs to the blog for a wonderful guest post!  Because his books are about international travel, I asked for a guest post that was travel related.  I'm very happy with the lovely post I received to share with you all today!

Travel is my favorite pastime, by far. I've been extraordinarily lucky to have traveled to around fifty countries, spread pretty evenly around the globe. Some visits have been as a short as a single, hectic day (Togo, for instance, driving from Ghana to Benin). Others have lasted weeks (Cuba, Italy) or even months (the UK, France, Peru). But I have very strong associations with each country I've visited. Travel memories are lasting.

Over the years, I've come to understand very clearly the limited perspectives I've had into the culture and character of each destination. And I’m more and more okay with that. National borders and cultural boundaries rarely follow the same lines, anyway, and where once I tried to see all the sites in the guidebook, I now treasure the individual experiences more. Along with this shift comes a desire to revisit some of the places I've been before. Some places never get old, no matter how many times I've been: like Rome, instance, or Varanasi.

Lately, one place especially is making its way back towards the top of my list: Istanbul.

The city’s sites are as thrilling and diverse as its history: Roman ruins, Crusader churches, Ottoman fortresses and palaces and walls. These vastly different cultures hit the city in successive waves, and each can still be felt. Much of Istanbul’s past has been folded into vibrant, modern city life--repurposed and restored. Other bits haven’t changed at all. My guidebook led me to a classic Turkish bathhouse, open for business daily since it first opened...in the late fifteenth century.

But the city was--and still is--a crossroads of concurrent cultures, too: Europe and Asia, East and West. Nothing has done more to scramble my understanding of the ancient world as the graffiti in the famous Haggia Sophia. Who scratched those runes in the upper balustrade of the church-turned mosque-turned-museum ? A Viking, that’s who. A VIKING!

Istanbul is a city with pretty much everything, especially for an archaeologist, like me. And I'm eager to go again.

About the Book:

Samantha Sutton and The Winter of the Warrior Queen
By Jordan Jacobs
Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
January 2014 ● ISBN: 978-1-4022-7563-0
Trade Paper/$6.99 ● Ages 9+

Another thrilling adventure awaits this bold heroine…

Samantha is hesitant to join Uncle Jay on a second archaeological excavation. But the marshes near Cambridge, England, sound harmless after the sinister perils she faced in Peru. Or so she thought...

During the excavation, Samantha realizes the site could be the ancient fortress of Queen Boudica, who led an uprising against the Roman Empire. An amazing find! But Samantha’s crucial discovery threatens to halt construction on a nearby theme park that will make millions for English Lord and eccentric landowner Cairn Catesby. Unfortunately for Samantha, Catesby is also the scheming head of Cambridge University's Archaeology Department, making him Uncle Jay's current boss. Catesby will stop at nothing to discredit Uncle Jay’s theories about the excavation site’s royal ties. When Samantha is entrusted with the protection of an artifact that undeniably links the site to the Warrior Queen, she becomes the target of unscrupulous men determined to get their fortune by any means necessary.

On the run through the snowy English countryside, Samantha must muster the strength and wit to protect the treasured artifact—with her uncle’s professional reputation hanging in the balance.

About the Author:

Jordan Jacobs’ career as an archaeologist began with a love of mummies, castles, and Indiana Jones. He journeyed to his first archaeological excavation at age 13 in California’s Sierra Nevada. A Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge-educated man, Jordan has worked as an archaeologist at world-class institutions such as The Smithsonian and The American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Jordan is passionate about public awareness for the illicit looting of artifacts at globally important archaeological sites. He works with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), where his recommendations have helped to protect historic sites and to alert agents around the world about precious artifacts smuggled on the black market. Jordan is currently a senior specialist at the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. http://j-jacobs.com/ @JordanNJacobs

Confident Reads: Anne Pfeffer Guest Post "Nugget's of Wisdom"

Hello everyone! Confident Reads is a feature I have here each week once in awhile and is a way to open communication between readers and Indie authors.  This  is to help readers feel confident in the books they spend their money on, and for authors to feel confident in the book they publish.

Today I'm excited to welcome back author Anne Pfeffer.  She has a wonderful guest post for us!

Really good advice is hard to come by. In fact, most advice I flee from. But I recently found two nuggets of wisdom--unrelated except that they both pertained to writers—that have helped me a lot. I hereby offer them to you.

Maintain an excellent, professional website closely geared to its target audience.

This advice may seem self-evident, but I, for one, wasn't following it. It came from Josh Adams of Adams Literary in a talk I heard recently.

Josh said to think about who the audience is for your website or blog. If you’re an unknown writer looking to win a traditional publishing deal, your website/blog audience is agents and editors. And if you’re sending out queries and submitting work for publication, agents and editors will visit your website. Guaranteed.

Therefore, your website and/or blog should be designed to impress those people only. Not your future readers, who might be fifth graders or hopeless romantics. And not your friends, with whom you gossip and bemoan all your little setbacks in life. So no cupids and hearts, and no sad posts about your many rejections. Your website should be professional and convince an agent or editor that you're someone they want to work with.

Also, to state the obvious, your website should exist. At the time I heard Josh’s speech, my own website had crashed and burned, and I’d never gotten around to reinstating it.

Boy, did I get religion fast. I should mention that I’m the author of three self-published books, but am now thinking of finding an agent for my fourth. I put together the most professional-looking website I could manage and studded it with anything I thought an agent or editor would want to know about me.

And guess what? Last week I got a call from an agent I’d never met. She had seen my name somewhere, read my website, and asked if I was working on anything new. As a matter of fact, I was! I got a request for the full manuscript.

So, thank you, Josh Adams, for advancing my career when you don’t even represent me. Now that’s a good agent!

When writing the opening sentence of your novel, remember: “Action in books for the young must start before the opening line.”

This advice is from the wonderful children’s book writer, Richard Peck. I came across it in a January/February 2014 SCBWI magazine article titled “First Impressions” by Kim Tomsic. Peck made the statement in connection with children’s books, but I would use it to start even a cook book, or a book about navigational systems in ocean liners.

I repeat: Action in books for the young must start before the opening line.

In other words, your opening line should describe an action that has already taken place. Peck used this technique in his book THE TEACHER’S FUNERAL: “If your teacher has to die, August isn’t a bad time of the year for it.”

Another example, from ALMOST MOON by Alice Sebold: “When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily.”

And from CRANK by Ellen Hopkins: “Life was good before I met the monster.”

This technique drops your reader into the middle of a river that is already rushing along, which gives the opening sentence tension and immediacy. I realized that I had stumbled onto this approach by dumb luck in my latest work-in-progress, called UNDERCOVER HAMSTER. My story starts: “The humans thought they had locked me in.” In all these examples, the action starts before the opening sentence.

These ideas are practical and concrete; they are something you can actually do. Try 'em. They work.

Visit Anne Pfeffer at www.annepfeffer.com

  Description of book:

To nineteen-year-old high school dropout Travis Walker, women are like snowflakes--each one different, but beautiful in her own way.

He can charm any girl he meets, and yet down deep he fears he'll always be a loser like his jailbird father. As the landlady threatens to evict him and his sick mother, Travis takes a job he hates and spends his evenings picking up girls at a nearby night spot.

When he enlists in a teen program at the local fire station, he finds out he’s amazing at it. Then he meets the smoking hot Kat Summers, enlists Kat’s friend Zoey to help him woo her, and falls in love for the first time ever.

But he keeps the details of his life secret. His girl will never love him back if she knows the truth about him….

From the Self-Publishing Review:

Pfeffer’s characters are nuanced and delightful. The story is nicely paced with a balance of tension and resolution that kept me turning pages. But what really makes this book lovely is harder to describe. Pfeffer shows enormous empathy and insight into the complications and humiliations of poverty and homelessness without ever seeming saccharine or preachy…. I predict you will be hearing more about this talented new author. “

http://www.selfpublishingreview.com/blog/2013/05/review-girls-love-travis-walker-by-anne-pfeffer/

Awards

Named one of the best indie books of 2013 by IndieReader.com
Third Place Winner for Fiction 
2013 IndieReader Discovery Awards
Finalist 2013 Indie Excellence Awards
Named an "Irresistible Read"  by www.compulsionreads.com

A Picture Tour of Brussels for The Master's Book by Philip Coleman + Giveaway

I'm really excited to welcome author Philip Coleman here for The Master's Book blog tour.  I really loved this book and you can check out my review HERE. This tour is hosted by me and you can find the tour page with all the tour stop HERE.  For my tour stop I have the author visiting the blog for a picture tour of Brussels.  This is one post I'm REALLY excited about, I love 'visiting' other countries and cities!

I’d like to take you on a picture tour of Brussels, where most of the action in The Master’s Book takes place.

Brussels was founded in the 10th Century and, over the centuries, control of the city moved from the Duchy of Burgundy, to the Spanish Empire, then to France, and then the Netherlands, before finally becoming the capital of the new Kingdom of Belgium in 1831. The end of the 19th Century saw Brussels become the capital of Art Nouveau, a new style that took Europe by storm, but that faded in the grim reality of World War I, when the city was occupied by the Germans. It was also occupied in World War II, after which it became the location for most of the institutions of the new European Economic Community, now the European Union. Sadly, this led to the demolition of some fine old buildings, and the construction of some hideous new ones. But the city still has lots of charm and I’ve tried to capture these aspects in this tour.

1. Typically, the facades of every house in a Brussels street are different (although matching pairs are tolerated). Here is the Maison Saint-Cyr, a lovely Art Nouveau house, designed by Gustave Strauven, sandwiched between two relatively ordinary ones on the Square Ambiorix.

2. Every Sunday antique dealers gather in the Place Grand Sablon to sell their wares; this event features in my story.

3. The Place Grand Sablon is the location of one of Brussels’ most important churches; the Church of Our Lady of the Grand Sablon.

4. Belgium is famous for lace, tapestries, beer and, of course, chocolate.

5. The Rue du Bouchers, or Butchers’ Street, is full of restaurants aimed at tourists, where they can enjoy Belgian specialities, such as mussels and fries.

6. The Grand Place, at the heart of Brussels, is one of the most beautiful city squares in Europe.

7. Also the Grand Place.

8. The Halle Gate is the only surviving gate of the old city walls. After the walls were removed it served as a prison but is now a museum.

9. Various legends account for the origin of the Manneken Pis, the sculpture of a little boy urinating into a fountain. He gets dressed up regularly, in various historical costumes, in the kit of Belgium’s football team, as Elvis or as Santa Claus.

10. Inevitably, the girls wanted their own equivalent of the Manneken Pis, and so Brussel also sports a statue of a little girl peeing, called the Janneken Pis.

11. Belgium is also famous for comic strips, and scenes from these can be found on some of the walls around the city. Here is Tintin, Belgium’s most famous comic strip character, created by Hergé.

12. Officially, Brussels was founded in 979 AD, when the relics of Saint Gudula were lodged in the town. These relics are now located in the Cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint Gudula.

13. The Marolles area is one of the more quietly charming parts of Brussels, with lots of curious antique shops and restaurants.

14. Many houses in Brussels have blank end walls decorated with false windows, as with this hat shop in the Marolles area.

15. Many of Brussels’ most famous Art Nouveau buildings were originally built for commercial purposes. The Old England Department Store, designed by the greatest of the Art Nouveau architects, Victor Horta, is now the Museum of Musical Instruments, and it features in my story.

About The Master’s Book:

Sean moves to Brussels to a house that is a crime scene...
In 1482 Mary, the last Duchess of Burgundy, lies on her deathbed in a castle in Flanders. She is only 25. In her final moments she makes a wish that, 500 years later, will threaten the lives of a boy and a girl living in Brussels.
The Master’s Book is the story of Sean, an Irish teenager, just arrived in Brussels to a house that is also a crime scene. Together with Stephanie, his classmate, he finds an illuminated manuscript, only for it to be stolen almost at once.
Where did this manuscript come from? Who was it originally made for? Is there a connection with the beautiful tomb Sean has seen in Bruges? Above all, why does someone want this book so badly that they are prepared to kill for it?
Part thriller and part paper-chase, this book is aimed at boys and girls of twelve and over.

Book can be found at: GoodReads | Amazon

Author bio

Philip Coleman has worked as a biologist for most of his life—in Ireland, Belgium and now in Switzerland.

Having been an avid reader all his life, he took up writing only in 2006. This is his first published novel. He drew his inspiration for the story from the period he spent working for the EU in Brussels. He has a grown-up son and daughter (who were roughly the same ages as Sean and Maeve during the time in Brussels but otherwise aren’t a bit like them at all!). He now lives in France.

Author Sites:
Website |  Twitter | Facebook | GoodReads

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Introducing YASeriesInsiders.com + a Giveaway!

I'm excited to be on this wonderful announcement.  There's not much for me to say, so I'll leave it up to them!  Remember to enter the wonderful giveaway at the end!

We're thrilled to have Candace's Book Blog participate in our launch celebration for YASeriesInsiders.com! The blog has been one of our favorites for a long time, and we love the giveaways, the Saturday Situation linky, and all the great book reviews. Thank you, Candace, for letting us visit and share the news out our new blog with your readers! YA Series Insiders (YASI) is about series fiction, and it's put together by a group of young adult authors who believe that books, and especially book series, can change hearts and form relationships with readers that last a lifetime. With that in mind, YASeriesInsiders.com is a blog about the discovery, celebration, and shared experience of the worlds and characters of the great teen series. While each of the eleven authors involved have young adult series starting in 2014 from major publishers, this blog is about all teen series fiction—past, present, and future. As series authors ourselves, we have a unique experience in that we can look at the books we love both as authors and readers. We also have the opportunity to reach out to the authors of these great books (or to run into them at book events), so we want to be able take advantage of that to make YA Series Insiders a place where readers and authors come together.

The Tumblr blog is launching today, 11/23/14, with interviews and lots of secrets from great series authors including:

• Melissa de la Cruz
• Tahereh Mafi
• Marie Lu
• Lauren Oliver
• Leigh Bardugo
• Tamora Pierce
• Ann Aguirre
• Beth Revis
• Cynthia Leitich Smith
• Nancy Holder
• Gennifer Albin
• Jessica Brody
• Susan Dennard

And many, many more! Plus we'll keep adding new secrets about authors, characters, and books, not to mention great series news, book trailers, cover reveals and, of course, more giveaways of the hottest series books. To celebrate the YASI launch, we are having a HUGE giveaway, including more than $1,000 of signed box sets or hardcover sets of our favorite YA series, plus jewelry, DVDs, and fun, handpicked items from each of the eleven YASI authors, at http://YASeriesInsiders.com. We are also hosting smaller giveaways, including MORE jewelry, unique gifts, and swag from each of us on the following four blogs:

• Adventures in YA Publishing - Gifts plus signed hardcovers of LEGEND, PRODIGY, CHAMPION by Marie Lu
• Mundie Moms - Gifts plus signed hardcovers of INSURGENT, DIVERGENT, ALLEGIANT by Veronica Roth
• YA Books Central - Gifts plus signed hardcovers of THE GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS, THE CROWN OF EMBERS, THE BITTER KINGDOM by Rae Carson
• Page Turners Blog - Gifts plus signed hardcovers of SHATTER ME and UNRAVEL ME by Tahereh Mafi and a signed hardcover of ICONS by Margaret Stohl

Also stop by the following places to win more great, signed books:

• The Story Siren - Signed hardcover of ALLEGIANT by Veronica Roth
• Jean the Booknerd - Signed hardcover of THE DIVINERS by Libba Bray
• Candace's Book Blog - Signed hardcover of NEVER FADE by Alexandra Bracken
• Literary Rambles - Signed hardcover of THE ARCHIVED by Victoria Schwab
• I Am a Reader, Not a Writer - Signed hardcover of FROZEN by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston
• Girls in the Stacks - Signed hardcover of UNBREAKABLE by Kami Garcia 

The giveaways all start today, November 23rd, and run through the end of the year. We'll announce all winners at YASeriesInsiders.com on January 1, 2014. There is only one winner per giveaway, eleven winners in all, so winners will be taking home boatloads of literary loot. :) Please enter by completing the form in this post to win here, and then stop by the above sites and YASeriesInsiders.com for more chances to win. We hope you'll be as excited about this project as we are!  
The YASI Team: Jennifer L. Armentrout, Nina Berry, Anne Blankman, Martina Boone, Lanie Bross, Tracy Clark, Bree Despain, Claudia Gray, S. E. Green, Kimberley Griffiths Little, and Sara Raasch.

The Giveaway Win a SIGNED hardcover of NEVER FADE by Alexandra Bracken!

Guest Post: Clint Stoker & All for Owen

Today I have author Clint Stoker on the blog for a guest post.  I haven't read any of his books, but they seem to have some great reviews!

One of the fun parts about writing is doing all the research. Some facts can be learned from reading, but others have to be experienced first-hand.

Here is some of the research it took to write All for Owen.

1.       Eat Dandelions.

I had heard they were edible and they are certainly everywhere. What better staple could a post-apocalyptic traveler ask for? I have to admit, dandelions don’t taste great.

2.       Brush up on Black Plague History.

The character on the cover is wearing an Italian plague doctor’s mask. The history is fascinating, but I couldn’t help wonder what it would take for those practices to emerge in society again.

3.       Shoot Big Guns.

Because All for Owen is a stew of historical elements, I tried my hand at shooting a WWII-era Russian rifle, the Mosin Nagant.

4.       Reminiscing on Teenage Pressures and Problems.

You can’t write about young adults without getting in-touch with your inner teen.

5.       Learn How to Make Colloidal Silver.

The science is interesting, but don’t drink too much of this home-brewed, cure-all. It will turn your skin blue, permanently.

6.       Get My Creep On.

To write a tense scene, it helps to watch a scary movie or think about creepy scenarios while lying in bed at night. Remember how it feels to hear a bump in the night. Cherish it and write down, because you never know when a character will need to feel those same feelings.

7.       Read About Philosophy.

Yeah, I know, this doesn’t sound like riveting research, but to write dimensional characters, I need to understand how different people adopt different ideologies. It makes for great villains.

To see how all these random activities relate, pick up a copy of All for Owen and see for yourself.

About the Book:

 Seventeen-year-old Jason Lowe has been able to hide from a broken world in his forgotten neighborhood. He can hide from the horrors of the man-made plague, because he’s immune. But when the creatures called Angsts discover Sunset Street, he can’t hide anymore.
The night Jason is late for watch, the Angsts, creatures clad in historical masks, bring the plague and infect his community. But Jason isn't the one chosen to save his home. Instead, he becomes the side-kick to twelve-year-old Owen Rosner, Sunset's least valuable resident.
Now the boys of Sunset have one shot at saving their community, to travel across the hazardous valley and trade for antidotes. But everything rests on keeping Owen Alive.

Something Wicked Returns: April Tucholke at the Cemetary at Night + Giveaway

Hello everyone!  We're back again with another Something Wicked Returns post!  Today I have April Tucholke on the blog with her spooky walk through the graveyard.  She recorded herself and we can just imagine all the creepy stuff going on.  If you've read Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, you'll know what kind of stuff might be going on at the graveyard...

I read and reviewed this book awhile back, but I'm reposing my review for those who may not have seen it.

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke

Hardcover, 368 pages

Expected Publication: August 15th by Dial

Source: Netgalley/ Publisher

You stop fearing the devil when you’re holding his hand…

Nothing much exciting rolls through Violet White’s sleepy, seaside town…until River West comes along. River rents the guesthouse behind Violet’s crumbling estate, and as eerie, grim things start to happen, Violet begins to wonder about the boy living in her backyard. Is River just a crooked-smiling liar with pretty eyes and a mysterious past? Or could he be something more? Violet’s grandmother always warned her about the Devil, but she never said he could be a dark-haired boy who takes naps in the sun, who likes coffee, who kisses you in a cemetery...who makes you want to kiss back. Violet’s already so knee-deep in love, she can’t see straight. And that’s just how River likes it.

Blending faded decadence and the thrilling dread of gothic horror, April Genevieve Tucholke weaves a dreamy, twisting contemporary romance, as gorgeously told as it is terrifying—a debut to watch.

It's been a little while since a book truly captivated me.   That sucked me on page one and didn't let go until the very last page.  A book that I could actually sit and read all in one sitting, and in fact desperately wanted to read in one sitting.  A book that was absolutely stunning and terrifying.  A book that every single aspect worked together magnificently.

The setting of the small town of Echo, and especially the gothic mansion that Violet lives in, are the perfect setting for this incredibly creepy story.  This home of Vi's is a mansion I really want to visit.  I'd say I'd like to live there, but I might be a little too scared to ever sleep!  The thing is, the mansion itself isn't what's so creepy.  It's more beautiful than anything.  And since Violet clearly loves it, we can't help but love it too.

I really, really liked Violet.  She's maybe a bit quiet and aloof, but she's a bit nerdy in that she loves to read and be immersed in her stories.  She also dresses in her grandma's old clothing and I really loved that, that's my kind of style, for sure!  Violet and her brother Luke are alone in this house as their parents have disappeared off to Europe to paint and do their art.  Vi and Luke fight a lot but as the story goes on we see how much they truly care about each other.   Violet is a very caring person and through the book we see her kindness show through in little things she does.  But maybe Violet has a little less kindness in her than she thought, or even thinks...

When River comes to town and rents out the guest house it's easy to fall for him.  He has this charisma and charm and it's hard to think bad of him.  But we, as the reader, know that there's something more to him just because of the book description.  And it becomes clear pretty quickly that something's up.  There's quite a lot of mystery and little things are constantly unraveling.  Even when we find out one thing, there's still so much more.  So it's mystery after mystery, I suppose.  And we still don't know, is he evil?  Is he accidentally bad, with good intentions?  We really don't know and the emotions are all over the place.  I can say I really, really wanted him to be good.  I really liked his personality but because I always felt so suspicious I never knew what exactly to think of anything he said or did.  The thing is, you may think you have it all figured out, but then POOF, another twist.  I absolutely loved it!  And the ending, brilliant!  (And no cliffhanger, woo hoo!)

The book is impossible to put down. While it has quite a few pages, I read it much more quickly than I do most books with even less pages.  And the creepiness, oh gosh!  I'm not a fan of horror, I get creeped out and scared super easy, but I think most anyone can agree this is plenty creepy! But even though I don't usually like horror, it worked for me in this one.  I read it for the gothic aspect and because April is a local author, but I'm SO glad I did!  This may very well end up on my favorites list for 2013...

Highly recommend!

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book.  All opinions expressed are my own and I was not paid or influenced in any way.

 Make sure you stop by Rainy Day Ramblings forAnn Aguirre: Horde

and tomorrow...
Candace@Candace's Book Blog: Nikki Jefford
Tressa@Tressa's Wishful Endings: C.J. Hill: Slayers

For this giveaway I'm giving away a $10 gift card. It can go toward buying a copy of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea or if you already have a copy then you can get something else that's spooky and fun!  

(I'm willing to make this $10 in paypal if you are unable to use a gift card due to your country)

Must be 13 or older to enter.

Ends October 31st.

Fill out the rafflecopter!

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Allure Blog Tour: Guest Post & Giveaway!

I'm really excited to welcome author Lea Nolan to the blog today as part of the blog tour for Allure, the second book in the Hoodoo Apprentice series. This tour has been put together by Rockstar Book Tours and you can find the tour page HERE.

I read the first book, Conjure, last year and it was really creepy and good.  So I wanted Lea to write about something to do with the setting.  And I got lucky, I got an amazing guest post about the setting along with photos as well!

Let's welcome Lea to the blog!

Thanks so much for having me, Candace. It’s a great pleasure to be here!

Why the South Carolina Lowcountry is the perfect setting for the Hoodoo Apprentice series

My book, Allure, the second installment in The Hoodoo Apprentice series features three teens who use Gullah hoodoo magic to battle an ancient-soul sucking curse and a hideous monster that will stop at nothing to consume its prey. The series is set on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, one of the Sea Islands that lies between the Atlantic and the US mainland. This area is known as the Lowcountry, and it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited.

In the right light, it can also be one of the creepiest which makes it the perfect setting for a series about good and evil, heinous crimes and retribution, and hopefully, with a little luck, salvation.

I don’t feel like I picked the location so much as the location picked me. Early on before I wrote a single word, I knew the ancient curses in the stories were created to punish a band of vicious pirates for a horrible crime. The first step was to figure out where those nasty pirates would most likely be lurking during the early eighteenth-century. A few clicks on the Internet told me that South Carolina was the perfect candidate.

After a bit more digging, I was reminded that the Sea Islands were also the home of the Gullah, descendants of freed slaves who developed their own culture and language. I also learned that some of the Gullah practice a unique brand of plant-based folk magic known as hoodoo.  With this rich history and the area’s amazing atmosphere and distinct features, it was as if the universe had handed me the perfect place to set this series.

I mean seriously, what’s more beautiful and spooky than dripping Spanish moss? The lowcountry is covered with this clingy, spongy stuff and it pops up all over the place in Allure and the first book in the Hoodoo Apprentice series, Conjure. This is a picture of my daughter on a recent scouting trip to St. Helena and surrounding islands. She thinks it’s as cool as I do.

And here’s a photo of one of St. Helena’s many gnarly live oak trees. Can you imagine walking through the woods at night, wondering if one of these things is going to reach over and grab you?

Any location with hundreds of years’ of history is likely to have really old cemeteries. In Allure, a private family graveyard is a huge set piece so you can imagine how happy I was to visit an eighteen-century abandoned churchyard that contained these gems:

These are so old and weathered, you can barely make out the names and carvings on the stones.

Check out these rusted iron motifs. They’re actually flowers, but from a distance they look like smiling skulls. Creep-tastic!

And this empty mid-nineteenth century crypt was equally squeal worthy—in a good way—because a certain crypt plays an important role in Allure, too.

With all these cool elements, I can’t imagine a better place to locate this series!

Thanks so much for having me. I hope you found this introduction to the lowcountry as fascinating as I do. So how about you? What types of places freak you out?

~Lea

Lea Nolan writes the kinds of stories she sought as a teen—smart paranormals with bright heroines, crazy-hot heroes, diabolical plot twists, plus a dose of magic, a draft of romance, and a sprinkle of history. She holds degrees in history and women’s studies concentrating in public policy and has spent nearly twenty years as a health policy analyst and researcher. She lives in Maryland with her heroically supportive husband and three clever children. You can learn more about Lea on her website, on Facebook, Twitter and on Goodreads. 

Worst. Summer. Ever.

Emma Guthrie races to learn the hoodoo magic needed to break The Beaumont Curse before her marked

boyfriend Cooper’s sixteenth birthday. But deep in the South Carolina Lowcountry, dark, mysterious forces encroach, conspiring to separate Emma and Cooper forever. When Cooper starts to change, turning cold and indifferent, Emma discovers that both his heart and body are marked for possession by competing but equally powerful adversaries.

Desperate to save him, Emma and her twin brother, Jack, risk their lives to uncover the source of the black magic that has allured Cooper and holds him in its grip. Faced with the horror of a soul-eating boohag, Emma and Jack must fight to resist its fiendish power to free Cooper long enough to join their strengths and face it together, before it destroys them all.

Find the Book:

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Indie Bound | iTunes | Goodreads

Grand Prize- A Hoodoo Apprentice Prize Pack US Only

2nd and 3rd prizes of $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift cards International.

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Something Wicked Returns is in full swing, be sure to stop by  Rainy Day Ramblings for Laura Bickle: The Outside as well as Curling Up With a Good Book and her feature of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Tucholke. Find the full schedule HERE.