Waiting on Wednesday: Hunted

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking The Spine and is a fun way to see what books other bloggers just can't wait to get their hands on!

HUNTED

Meagan Spooner

Young Adult/Fantasy/Retelling

Releases March 2017 from HarperTeen

From Goodreads:

Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them.

So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance.

Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?

Beauty and the Beast is my all-time favorite fairy tale, so whenever a retelling pops up it takes absolutely no convincing to get me to add it to my must-have list. I'm also a huge fan of Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman's Starbound trilogy, so I'm hoping this one blows me away in much the same way. Curses, ruined castles, and a beauty vs. beast plotline? YES PLEASE!

Goodreads • Amazon  

Queen of Hearts Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway!

QUEEN OF HEARTS
Queen of Hearts #1
Colleen Oakes
Young Adult/Fantasy
320 pages
Harper Teen
Available May 3rd
Source: eARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
As Princess of Wonderland Palace and the future Queen of Hearts, Dinah’s days are an endless monotony of tea, tarts, and a stream of vicious humiliations at the hands of her father, the King of Hearts. The only highlight of her days is visiting Wardley, her childhood best friend, the future Knave of Hearts — and the love of her life.

When an enchanting stranger arrives at the Palace, Dinah watches as everything she’s ever wanted threatens to crumble. As her coronation date approaches, a series of suspicious and bloody events suggests that something sinister stirs in the whimsical halls of Wonderland. It’s up to Dinah to unravel the mysteries that lurk both inside and under the Palace before she loses her own head to a clever and faceless foe.

Part epic fantasy, part twisted fairy tale, this dazzling saga will have readers shivering as Dinahs furious nature sweeps Wonderland up in the maelstrom of her wrath.

Familiar characters such as Cheshire, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter make their appearance, enchanting readers with this new, dark take on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

QUEEN OF HEARTS

Queen of Hearts is a retelling that takes a little time to build, our time with Dinah in the opening chapters staying very much on the surface as she navigates the unexpected arrival of a new half sister and the deterioration of her already poor relationship with her father. The writing too seems very straightforward and simplistic in the beginning, telling us how Dinah feels about all that's happening without truly sucking us into her tale, but before too long this story starts to shift, shadows creeping in from all directions until they swallow us whole and force us far, far below the surface we'd previously been tiptoeing along.

At first glance, Dinah appears to be a young woman with a single layer to her character, that of a girl desperate for approval that's never going to come from an uncaring father, becoming increasingly bitter the more he shuns her in favor of her half sister. With time however, Dinah becomes far more intriguing than that first glance suggests, her volatile relationship with her father escalating to the point that we can't wait for the moment she might unleash her vengeance upon him and all those in her court who have mercilessly mocked her despite her royal status. While her father becomes increasingly cruel, Dinah manages to keep her cool, biding her time and working behind the scenes to uncover the dark secrets of Wonderland, and once she sets forth with this new purpose, her tale becomes impossible to put down.

One of the most interesting aspects of a retelling (for me personally) is seeing in what ways the author stays true to the original story and in what ways he or she deviates, and Queen of Hearts is no different. It's hard not to root for Dinah in this first installment given all the derision she faces from those who should love and respect her, but in the back of our minds we can't help but wonder if Dinah is already becoming the villain of the original and we just can't see it yet since we only have her perspective of various events. Either way though, she's a young woman with whom we desperately want more time once we close the back cover, and the wait for the second installment is sure to be long and painful in the best possible way.

Rating: 4/5

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | iBooks | The Book Depository

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 

COLLEEN OAKES

Colleen Oakes is the author of books for both teens and adults, including The Elly in Bloom Series, The Queen of Hearts Saga (Harper Collins 2016) and The Wendy Darling Saga. She lives in North Denver with her husband and son and surrounds herself with the most lovely family and friends imaginable. When not writing or plotting new books, Colleen can be found swimming, traveling and totally immersing herself in nerdy pop culture. She currently at work on another YA fantasy series and a stand-alone YA novel.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

GIVEAWAY

Three lucky winners will each recieve a finished copy of Queen of Hearts! WOO HOO! To enter, please fill out the Rafflecopter form below. Giveaway is open to US addresses only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

WEEK ONE:

5/2: Supernatural Snark - Review

5/3: No BS Book Reviews - Q&A

5/4: The Irish Banana Review - Review

5/5: A Backwards Story - A Twist in Our Tale

5/6: In Wonderland - Review

WEEK TWO:

5/9: Two Chicks on Books - Guest Post

5/10: Bookish Antics - Review

5/11: Adventures of a Book Junkie - Q&A

5/12: Chapter by Chapter - Review

5/13: Brooke Reports - Top 10

Friday Flourish: Masque

Happy Friday and Happy Almost Easter everyone!

I've been celebrating Easter basically since February when my grocery store started stocking Cadbury Mini Eggs, the most delicious chocolatey-goodness ever invented. This weekend will likely consist primarily of massive chocolate consumption, but also some quality family time as well. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Before I rush off to my date with Mini Eggs though, I have another of my recent cover designs to share with you. I've had an influx of requests for illustrated covers lately, and it's made me ridiculously happy. The design memo author W.R. Gingell submitted for her fairy tale/fantasy novel Masque had me giddy with excitement not only because it's a bit of a Beauty and the Beast retelling and that's my very favorite fairy tale, but also because she emphasized her love for typography. You guys are well aware by now how much I love type and finding the perfect font for any given project, so as with last week's The Broken Crown, I started my design process by searching for the right typeface for Masque.

It didn't take me long to find a front runner – one that had a great deal of character to help create a brand for the series, as well as one that had a regal quality to it befitting the Victorian-era setting. Given the title of the book and the fact that masks themselves play a pivotal role, it seemed as though it might be odd if the design didn't incorporate a mask in some way, so once the type was in place I worked on putting the mask illustration together.

W.R. included a tagline in the artwork form she submitted to me, and when I saw the words "bloody murder", the concept for the mask really fell into place. I incorporated blood drips into the mask itself and added little blood spatter to the background, creating a bit of dark contrast to the gold and glitter of the mask and title. I couldn't be more pleased with how the cover turned out, so I hope you guys love it as much as W.R. and I do!

Beauty met the Beast and there was . . . Bloody murder?

It’s the Annual Ambassadorial Ball in Glause, and Lady Isabella Farrah, the daughter of New Civet’s Ambassador, is feeling pleasantly scintillated.

In the library is Lord Pecus, a charming gentleman whose double mask hides a beastly face, and who has decided that Isabella is the very person to break the Pecus curse.

In the ball-room is young Lord Topher, who is rapidly falling in love with an older woman.

And in the card-room, lying in a pool of his own blood, is the body of one of Isabella’s oldest friends: Raoul, Civet’s Head Guardsman. The papers sewn into his sash seem to suggest espionage gone wrong, but Isabella is not so certain.

Lord Pecus, as Commander of the Watch, is of the opinion that Isabella should keep out of the investigation and out of danger. Isabella is of the opinion that it is her murder to investigate, and that what a certain Beast-Lord doesn’t know won’t hurt him. . . .

Will Isabella find the murderer before Lord Pecus does, or will she end her investigation as a bloody spatter on the parlour floor?

Find Masque:

Amazon • B&N • Goodreads

Find W.R.:

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You can check out more of my cover design work at Seedlings Design Studio!  

Spinning Starlight Blog Tour: Guest Post + Giveaway

Today I'm super excited to welcome author R.C. Lewis to the blog as part of the promotional tour for Spinning Starlight, a retelling of The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen. There's little I love more than a fairytale retelling, so this book was destined for my must-have list before I even knew of its existence. Since my adoration of fairytales borders on excessive, I thought I'd ask R.C. what fairytales would most appeal to protagonist Liddi if she had nothing but time to read!

Liddi Jantzen’s Top Three Reading-Time Favorites

(First off, Liddi would be all about the audiobook, since her world went full-speed ahead on audio/video interface being the way to go ages back. But without further ado...)

#1 The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen

Obviously. Liddi would have oodles of sympathy for this character’s can’t-talk quandary. From firsthand experience, no less. She knows the frustration and fear that can come from not being able to communicate comfortably with those around her, especially total strangers in a strange land that defies all her prior experiences.

She would not be a fan of the ending.

#2 The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen

(Liddi doesn’t know about her own roots in Andersen’s work, so it’s amusing that she’s so partial to his work.)

Again, Liddi would very much identify with the main character in this story. She’s long felt like the odd-one-out among her brothers, and it has nothing to do with being the only girl. Everyone in her family has a spark of genius when it comes to improving old technologies or inventing new ones. Liddi’s competent enough skillwise, but the ideas just won’t come. She wonders if she’s somehow from the wrong “batch.”

#3 Constellation Myths—any and all

(This will keep her busy since the first two are relatively short.)

Liddi grows up with a low opinion of any kind of superstition, yet she can’t help being a stargazer like her late mother. Despite the interstellar distance they represent, looking at the stars makes her feel closer to something. Later, a new friend tells her stories of the constellations on another world, so after the events of Spinning Starlight, I think Liddi would be very interested in hearing such stories from other places and cultures.

Thanks so much for stopping by R.C.!

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

SPINNING STARLIGHT

Sixteen-year-old heiress and paparazzi darling Liddi Jantzen hates the spotlight. But as the only daughter in the most powerful tech family in the galaxy, it's hard to escape it. So when a group of men show up at her house uninvited, she assumes it's just the usual media-grubs. That is, until shots are fired.

Liddi escapes, only to be pulled into an interplanetary conspiracy more complex than she ever could have imagined. Her older brothers have been caught as well, trapped in the conduits between the planets. And when their captor implants a device in Liddi's vocal cords to monitor her speech, their lives are in her hands: One word and her brothers are dead.

Desperate to save her family from a desolate future, Liddi travels to another world, where she meets the one person who might have the skills to help her bring her eight brothers home-a handsome dignitary named Tiav. But without her voice, Liddi must use every bit of her strength and wit to convince Tiav that her mission is true. With the tenuous balance of the planets deeply intertwined with her brothers' survival, just how much is Liddi willing to sacrifice to bring them back?

Haunting and mesmerizing, this retelling of Hans Christian Andersen'sThe Wild Swans strings the heart of the classic with a stunning, imaginative world as a star-crossed family fights for survival in this companion to Stitching Snow.

Goodreads • Amazon • B&N • iBooks

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R.C. LEWIS

R.C. Lewis teaches math to teenagers—sometimes in sign language, sometimes not—so whether she’s a science geek or a bookworm depends on when you look. That may explain why her characters don’t like to be pigeonholed. Coincidentally, R.C. enjoys reading about quantum physics and the identity issues of photons.

Website • Facebook • Twitter • Instagram • Goodreads • Tumblr

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

GIVEAWAY

One lucky winner will receive a signed finished copy of SPINNING STARLIGHT. To enter, please fill out the Rafflecopter form below. Open to US addresses only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

  Be sure and check out all the participating blogs for more guest posts and interviews!
   
WEEK ONE

9/28/2015- Fangirlish- Interview  
9/29/2015- A Backwards Story- Review  
9/30/2015- Supernatural Snark- Guest Post   
10/1/2015- YaReads- Review  
10/2/2015- Two Chicks on Books- Interview

WEEK TWO

10/5/2015- Pandora's Books- Review

10/6/2015- Bookhounds ya- Guest Post

10/7/2015- Just Commonly- Review

10/8/2015- Mundie Moms- Interview

10/9/2015- Please Feed The Bookworm- Review

Guest Post: Katherine Harbour + The Night And Nothing Series

I'm so pleased today to welcome author Katherine Harbour back to the blog to talk a little bit more about her Night and Nothing series. I'm a huge fan of all things fairytale or mythology related, so I was thrilled when Katherine was more than willing to tackle that topic and give us all a few goosebumps by discussing things with teeth. Take it away Katherine!

There’s something almost supernatural about teeth. Teeth remain after we die. Teeth are alive although they appear lifeless. Teeth in mammals contributed to the success of human evolution. (In Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, teeth are used to resurrect an entire race of beings.) Children’s teeth, lost naturally, were once given to Norse warriors as amulets and believed to bring good fortune in battle. In some cultures, children’s teeth were destroyed or hidden as a preventative against their being used for malevolent purposes.

For most children, losing a tooth is an unpleasant experience—a piece of them is falling off, there’s blood. But it’s a rite of passage, a first step toward adolescence. In J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, Peter is described as “a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices of trees, but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all of his first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.” On the other hand, the title character in Graham Joyce’s The Tooth Fairy is a disturbing presence who ushers the protagonist into adulthood.

And what does the Tooth Fairy do with all of those teeth she collects? The Tooth Fairy goes rogue in Gregory Maguire’s children’s book What-the-Dickens. In Zenoscope’s graphic novel series Grimm Fairy Tales, the tooth fairy is a sexy dentist by day and a bloodthirsty monster at night. The sinister aspect of this childhood icon, established in the twentieth century, has been the source of horror films such as Darkness Falls, in which the tooth fairy becomes a vengeful entity, and The Haunting of Helena, where she’s portrayed as a terrifying spirit with a bloody history. In Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy movies, the tooth fairies are as vicious as swarming piranhas.

Teeth become terrifying when in the mouths of monsters, alluring (to some) between the lips of (attractive) vampires. In my dark fantasy novels Thorn Jack and Briar Queen, the supernatural Fatas use human teeth as currency, as weapons, but, to the protean Fatas, who can sometimes shift into monstrous shapes and who are really the formless children of nothing and night, we are the things with teeth.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by Katherine! And I just want to add that the movie Darkness Falls traumatized me. It said it was rated PG-13 and I was all "I'm an adult, I've got this, how bad could it be?" and then I nearly died of terror. Just saying ;-)

• • • • • • • • • • • 

THORN JACK

Finn Sullivan has lost her older sister to suicide. Fleeing the memories left in San Francisco, she and her father move to an upstate New York town filled with socialities, hippies, movie and Theatre folk, where every corner holds possibilities and mysteries. As she settles in and begins college at the local university, HallowHeart, she discovers her sisters journal, filled with ominous musings on otherworldly beings.  She also meets the devastatingly handsome Jack Fata—and the rest of the enigmatic Fata family. 

As Finn’s fascination with Jack and his family deepens—and theirs for her does the same—she learns that they and the rest of the town denizens are far more than they seem, both for good and evil. Her sister’s journal suddenly seems much more menacing and realistic than she could ever have imagined.

Soon Finn learns that attention from the Fatas brings dangerous consequences. To free herself and save her friends and her love, Finn must confront the Fatas and unravel the secrets surrounding her sister’s death.

Goodreads • Amazon • B&N

• • • • • • • • • • • 

BRIAR QUEEN

Serafina Sullivan and her father left San Francisco to escape the painful memory of her older sister Lily Rose's suicide. But soon after she arrived in bohemian Fair Hollow, New York, Finn discovered a terrifying secret connected to Lily Rose. The placid surface of this picture-perfect town concealed an eerie supernatural world--and at its center, the wealthy, beautiful, and terrifying Fata family.

Though the striking and mysterious Jack Fata tried to push Finn away to protect her, their attraction was too powerful to resist. To save him, Finn--a girl named for the angels and a brave Irish prince--banished a cabal of malevolent enemies to shadows, freeing him from their diabolical grip.

Now, the rhythm of life in Fair Hollow is beginning to feel a little closer to ordinary. But Finn knows better than to be lulled by this comfortable sense of normalcy. It's just the calm before the storm. For soon, a chance encounter outside the magical Brambleberry Books will lead her down a rabbit hole, into a fairy world of secrets and legacies . . . straight towards the shocking truth about her sister's death.

Lush and gorgeously written, featuring star-crossed lovers and the collision of the magical and the mundane, Briar Queen will appeal to the fans of Cassandra Clare's bestselling Mortal Instruments series and Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely.

Goodreads • Amazon • B&N

• • • • • • • • • • •

KATHERINE HARBOUR

Born in upstate New York, Katherine Harbour is now a bookseller in Sarasota, Florida living with a tempestuous black cat named Pooka and too many books. She has been writing since she was 15 and has had several short stories published. THORN JACK is her first novel.

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Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses

A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES
A Court of Thorns and Roses #1
Sarah J. Maas
Young Adult/Fantasy
416 pages
Bloomsbury
Available May 5th
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

MY THOUGHTS
Every once in a while when we emerge from a story that's held our undivided attention for so long, blinking blearily at our reality, we find we can focus on nothing other than the desire to return to the first page and start the experience all over again. A Court of Thorns and Roses is very much that type of tale; one that leaves us physically unable to pick up another book for days following the turn of the last page given that doing so would be acknowledging our time with Feyre and Tamlin is temporarily over.

Ms. Maas has the uncanny ability to write characters who are a study in contrasts; a beautiful mess of conflicting attributes that resonate so thoroughly they become unforgettable in a very short amount of time. Feyre is gorgeously strong physically and mentally, providing for her crippled father and two older sisters as they sit comfortably in the tiny cottage they call home and complain about the speed at which Feyre puts food on their table. While confident in her hunting abilities, she's hugely self-conscious with regard to her intelligence, her inability to read and write something that causes her no shortage of shame. What she sees as a flaw though is but one of the many threads that bind us to her emotionally, able to feel her every joy and pain as if it were our own.

Tamlin, though more of a mystery to us given we spend all our time in Feyre's head, is as stunningly layered as she is, comprised of more shades of gray than we would have imagined possible prior to reading. At his core he could be described as good or even heroic, but like Feyre, when challenged and backed into a corner he's capable of making decisions that have brutal consequences for those around him. His relationship with Feyre is deliciously tense, the two of them tiptoeing around one another for much of the first half, trying to figure out how to make the best of a situation that's difficult for all involved. They spare us the drama we might have anticipated given Feyre's essentially kidnapped and forced to live in a world unfamiliar to her, instead proving they are not above apologizing when they make a misstep and constantly choosing to compromise when they could so easily lash out.

While Feyre and Tamlin are highlights, Ms. Maas supports them an extraordinary cast of secondary characters, each with shadows behind their eyes that whisper beseechingly to us as we slip further and further under the spell of this magnificent world, letting us know they have secrets to tell and scars for us to examine more closely. We're left in a very satisfying place, the events of the final hundred pages clearly going to have epic repercussions on this world and its inhabitants, but those repercussions remain firmly on the horizon as we flip the final page. A Court of Thorns and Roses is Ms. Maas at her very finest, giving us a glimpse at an imagination that impresses us more fully with each book we're gifted.

Rating: 5/5

Find Sarah:

 

Website • Facebook • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon

This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Editor Interview: Sara Sargent + Cruel Beauty

Today is a very exciting day for me because I'm joined on the blog by Sara Sargent, the editor of a book that simply fascinated me, Cruel Beauty. Sara is my very first editor interview, and I'm hugely thankful to her for taking the time to answer my questions about this darkly unique debut. I was lucky enough to have Rosamund Hodge on the blog recently as well because I just can't stop talking about this book, so be sure and check out that interview if you missed it. Welcome to Supernatural Snark Sara!

What’s one book you grew up with, studied in school, or read just for fun that you would have loved to have gotten your hands on from an editing standpoint, if for no other reason than to say you worked on it?

The Giver by Lois Lowry. That book has stuck with me for twenty years, and editing it would have given me an excuse to read it over and over again.

What would you say, for you personally, is the highlight of the relationship between editor and author?

The process of actually building that relationship. It’s about discovering how you can be helpful and supportive to this particular person, and what she needs to be her most successful self. Sometimes that’s as simple as a silly tweet, and sometimes it’s a phone call or a thoughtful email. You’re becoming a part of that person’s life forever, and she’s becoming a part of yours—it’s a wonderful thing, and it’s different with every new author and project.

How would you describe the feeling you get just before you read the first page of a new manuscript?

Whether I’m on the subway or in bed or at my desk, turning on my iPad and selecting a new submission to read has this delicious anticipatory quality. I have no idea what’s waiting for me inside that file: every manuscript has the potential to be the next manuscript I fall head-over-heels for. The feeling is excitement, but it’s much more than that. It’s my future and someone else’s future and limitless possibility.

You wake up tomorrow and suddenly find yourself in the dark, twisted forest of what is clearly a fictional world. You don’t know how you know, but you’re instinctually aware that someone is writing a story with you in the starring role at that very moment. Name one author you would desperately hope is in control of penning your story’s outcome.

Might sound like pandering, but I would be perfectly pleased to wake up in one of Rosamund’s stories. It’s a dicey choice because there are some very evil people and creatures in her novels, but I’d likely end up kissing someone very dashing, which would make it worth the risk.

If you could have asked Rosamund to write you into Cruel Beauty, where would you have best fit and what role might you have played?

We never meet any of Ignifex’s previous wives, but considering I’ve fallen madly in love with him, I imagine he and I would have been married at some point. (Though if that were the case, preferably I wouldn’t have ended up dead…)

Rosamund beautifully combines elements of Greek mythology with her Beauty and the Beast retelling. If you could choose one other Greek myth or fairytale for Rosamund to put her own spin on, which one would you most like to see her to write?

I would love to see her write Sleeping Beauty from the point of view of Maleficent because she’s so good at making flawed characters relatable. And what better way to do that than making a classic villainess into a protagonist?

What one word would you use to describe the original manuscript of Cruel Beauty? What word would you use to describe the final version?

Original: unputdownable. Final: beyond.

• • • • • • • • • • •

CRUEL BEAUTY

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

 

Find Rosamund:

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Review: Cress

CRESS
The Lunar Chronicles #3
Marissa Meyer
Young Adult/Sci-Fi/Fairytale Retelling
560 pages
Feiwel & Friends
Available February 4th
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker—unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

MY THOUGHTS
Cress is a story we enter into with a great deal of excitement, though as was the case with Scarlet we can’t help but let a little wariness sneak in and mingle with our enthusiasm, wondering if it’s going to be this installment when the addition of yet another new main character proves to be a detriment to the overall story rather than a bonus. While Cress as a stand-alone heroine isn’t quite as strong as either Cinder or Scarlet before her, Ms. Meyer proves yet again what a brilliant storyteller she truly is, seamlessly working Cress into the fabric of her stunningly rich and detailed fantasy world and nestling her in with an already-beloved cast of characters as though she’d been there all along.

Cress, unlike both Cinder and Scarlet, isn’t much of a fighter either mentally or physically, her solitary confinement creating in her an air of extreme innocence and vulnerability that takes a little while to adjust to coming off our experiences with the previous two heroines. While each young woman’s original fairytale had them as damsels in various types of distress, both Scarlet and Cinder defied that label in terms of its common connotation to weakness in their retellings, their independence and fierceness present and accounted for. Cress embraces the damsel in distress label a little more fully, often needing the hilarious and endlessly amusing Captain Thorne to come to her aid. It’s not to say she’s without skills as she’s a truly gifted hacker and plays a significant and vital role in the events of this book, she’s just perhaps quieter and more reserved (understandably given what she’s gone through) than we might have been anticipating.

If this had been Cress’s book alone, one that focused primarily on her and relegated Cinder to a more supporting role, this installment may have come up just a touch short when compared to the first two, but Cress is beautifully bolstered by Ms Meyer’s extraordinary and extensive cast of main and secondary characters. This story is every bit as much Cinder’s as it is Cress’s, and as a result Cress becomes a little something different–a beautiful contrast–to the two young women we’ve already met, rounding out the whole with her differences as opposed to coming off as less-than as she might have on her own. Her relationship with Thorne is a touch weaker as well, but again the strength of Cinder’s relationship with Kai and particularly Scarlet’s with Wolf (despite their limited page time) more than fills in any empty spaces left by the lack of an overly strong emotional connection to the pair of them, and we can only hope that their romance is one that continues to develop in Winter just as the other two romances progressed in this installment.

While there is a myriad of positive aspects and highlights to Cress over which to gush, one of the most arguably striking would have to be the very brief introduction to Winter herself, a young woman who captivates from the moment she appears on page and leaves us profoundly curious after a single interaction with Scarlet. She is a series of riddles, a labyrinthine character full of dark corners and wrong turns who has us practically salivating over the chance to figure her out, but despite the pain of a long wait until she graces us with more of her presence, we are left in awe of Ms. Meyer’s imagination and more in love with her characters than ever before.

Rating: 4/5
 

Find Marissa

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This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.

Interview: Rosamund Hodge

I'm hugely excited today to welcome young adult author Rosamund Hodge to the blog to answer a few questions about her debut novel, Cruel Beauty. I absolutely adored this book (read my full review), particularly the dark complexity of both Nyx and The Gentle Lord, and I simply can't recommend it enough to those who are looking for a very different take on the Beauty and the Beast fairytale. I was so thrilled when Rosamund agreed to stop by the blog (be sure and check back next week as I was lucky enough to ask her editor a few questions as well), so I hope you all enjoy the interview!

The castle the Gentle Lord calls home is a labyrinth of stairs, hallways, and locked rooms that require completely unique keys for entry. If you were a guest in the castle (for an extended stay), what would the key to your room look like?

Funny you should ask. I happen to know the precise answer to that question. My key would look like the silver one in this picture:

(They’re pendants made by Keyper’s Cove on Etsy. Sadly, by the time I tracked down the origin of the picture, those particular keys had sold.)

You’re seated at the Gentle Lord’s very special dinner table waiting for the evening’s meal to magically appear as it does every night. What foods do you most wish will be on the menu?

Crème brûlée. I feel weird about that, since I am a chocolate girl and always will be—just like I will always pick cats over dogs and Luke Skywalker over Han Solo (shut up, he is the best!)—but crème brûlée is my very favorite dessert of all time, and I will even order it when there is flourless chocolate cake on the menu. Because it is custardy vanilla goodness forged in fire, so what’s not to love?

The castle boasts a rather impressive library even though the books are nearly unreadable for a variety of reasons. What’s one book Nyx would love to have on the shelves in order to make herself feel more at home?

Unquestionably she would want Cosmatos & Burnham’s Handbook of Modern Hermetic Techniques, the first Hermetic textbook that she ever studied. Nyx may be bitter and conflicted about her mission, but she is an enormous geek who loves the Hermetic arts—which are her world’s magic-meets-technology—and in another world she would be happily programming computers or soldering electronics.

(The Handbook is actually named after Burnham’s Celestial Handbook, a 2,138-page catalogue of all the constellations in the sky, which was compiled by one man: the amateur astronomer Robert Burnham. I am no astronomer myself, but it was a favorite of one of my brothers when we were growing up.)

Nyx is not the first young woman to call herself wife to the Gentle Lord. If she could ask any one of his past wives a question, what would she most like to know?

“How can I avenge you?”

The world of Arcadia is both dark and utterly fascinating. What’s one aspect of our world Nyx and the Gentle Lord might find equally intriguing?

The Internet. Nyx, because of the endless research. The Gentle Lord, because of the endless schadenfreude.

You’re alone in the castle with nothing but your thoughts and a single key. The key is to a door that will either free both you and all of Arcadia from the demons that terrorize the city, or it will free those very demons with no way to imprison them once again. Do you take the risk and use your key?

Probably not, unless the situation in Arcadia was really bad and there was really no hope of turning up an alternate/safer solution. I mean, you’re talking 50/50 odds that every single person alive will be instantly killed or driven horribly, agonizingly insane. It’s hard to justify that kind of risk unless you really have no other options.

I realize that’s a fairly stick-in-the-mud answer. But it’s one thing to risk all for freedom when only your own life is at stake. When you’ve got the fate of millions of people riding on your choices, I really think you have to run the numbers, even if ultimately the numbers aren’t the only thing you pay attention to. And that problem—when everyone alive could be killed or saved by your choices, how do you weight one life against millions?—is a problem Nyx has to face as well.

If someone were using your life as inspiration for a new fairy tale or myth that would be passed from one generation to the next in Arcadia, how would the very first or the very last line read?

“And then she died.”

(Spoiler: it’s how your story is going to end too.)

• • • • • • • • • • •

CRUEL BEAUTY

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

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• • • • • • • • • • • 

ROSAMUND HODGE

(photograph by Janelle Bighinatti)

When my older brother was thirteen, he started a writing club with his friends and wouldn’t let me join because I was only eight. I promptly swore that I would become a writer and make him sorry.

He still isn’t sorry. (I checked.) But in 2014 I will publish my first novel with Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins, so I guess everything worked out okay.

Some other facts about me:

• I practice Shorinji Kempo, a Japanese martial art based on Shaolin Kung Fu.

• Cruel Beauty is my debut novel, but it is somewhere between the third and sixth that I ever completed, depending on how you count things. (There was the 40,000-word mess I called a novel when I was sixteen, and the 220,000-word mess I briefly pretended was a single novel in 2009.)

• NaNoWriMo changed my life and got me finishing novels again after a long hiatus. But Cruel Beauty is not a NaNoWriMo novel. (The NaNoWriMo project that changed everything was the 220,000-word mess. Someday I may even revise it.)

• I grew up as a homeschooler in Los Angeles, and I spent my childhood marinating in Greek mythology, which is where all the Greek elements in Cruel Beauty come from.

• Then I got a B.A. in English at the University of Dallas, and an M.St. in Medieval English at Oxford. Naturally, I moved to Seattle and got a job with computers.

• I have studied five languages (Spanish, French, Latin, Old Norse, and Japanese), though sadly I am still not able to speak any of them.

• I love some things more than T. S. Eliot’s poetry. But not many things.

• I am represented by Hannah Bowman of Liza Dawson Associates.

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Review: Hook & Jill

HOOK & JILL
Hook and Jill Saga #1
Andrea Jones
Fantasy/fairy tale retelling
293 pages
Reginetta Press
Available Now
Source: From author for review

THE STORY (from Amazon)
Wendy Darling learns. What appears to be good may prove otherwise, and what seems to be evil…is irresistible.

In this startling new vision of a cultural classic, Wendy intends to live happily ever after with Peter Pan. But Time, like this tale, behaves in a most unsettling way.

As Wendy mothers the Lost Boys in Neverland, they thrive on adventure. She struggles to keep her boys safe from the Island’s many hazards, but she finds a more subtle threat encroaching from an unexpected quarter.…The children are growing up, and only Peter knows the punishment.

Yet in the inky edges of the Island, the tales Wendy tells to the Lost Boys come true. Captain Hook is real, and even the Wonderful Boy can’t defend his Wendy against this menace. Hook is a master manipulator, devising vengeance for his maiming. Insidious and seductive, Hook has his reasons for tempting Wendy to grow up.

Revenge is only the first.

Deepening the characters so artfully sketched by J.M. Barrie, Hook & Jill reveals the dark side of innocence at which Barrie hinted in the figure of Peter Pan. It brings alive a daring Wendy who asks questions and seeks truth; it delves into the man, Hook, the iconic villain. Striding from fairy-tale and thrusting into reality, Captain Hook becomes a frightening force indeed.

MY THOUGHTS
Hook & Jill is one of those stories that will likely inspire widely varying opinions, not so much as a result of the subject matter but rather the writing style, Ms. Jones favoring prose that can be a bit dense at times even though it's undeniably beautiful. Hook & Jill has a very classic feel to it, the writing often taking a more circuitous route to get to a point rather than a direct one, sometimes weighing us down with more words than seem necessary to move the plot forward. That being said however, many a reader will appreciate this tale just as it is, but those like myself who sometimes struggle with long descriptive passages and don’t always care to try and glean meaning through a sea of words that work hard to obscure it will find this a more challenging read.

The characters themselves are a compelling group, the heroes and villains of the famous original turned on their heads much to our delight, but even as we glory in the new roles assigned to Peter, Wendy and Hook, we never find ourselves fully connected to them. They are wisps of smoke; dancing beautifully before our eyes but ultimately remaining intangible, slipping right through our fingers as we try and grab them for closer inspection. Hook is a highlight though, gloriously straddling the line between cruel captain and powerful protector, both charming and fascinating us every time he appears on page.

It does take a while before Hook graces us with his presence however, and once he’s finally introduced it’s hard not to feel the slightest bit of irritation whenever we’re taken from him and forced to follow someone of lesser interest. There are times when we’re bounced to characters whom, while not wholly unnecessary, aren’t vital to the plot either, and we can’t help but find ourselves flipping ahead to see how many more pages stand between us and our beloved Hook. All in all, Hook & Jill is a dark and deeply intriguing look at Neverland, but it’s a read that has a bit of a bite to it as well, making certain readers work to make it all the way through.

Rating: 3.5/5

Find Andrea:

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This book was sent to me by the author free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.