The Big Love Letter Event 2015: Kristen Simmons

Welcome to day one of The Big Love Letter Event! For those of you who missed the introductory post a couple weeks ago, this event will run every Friday through March 13th and will consist of love letters written by some truly amazing authors. Danny from Bewitched Bookworms and I will each be hosting different letters every week (hop over there today for a little something special from Heather Demetrios!), so be sure and check out both blogs for a bigger and better celebration of all things swoon-worthy. We'll also be hosting a fantastic giveaway, so don't forget to check the bottom of the post for all the details!

I have the pleasure of kicking this event off today with Kristen Simmons, author of the Article 5 series and, more recently, The Glass Arrow which is set to release next week. I read the Article 5 series a while back and fell madly in love with it, and then last year was able to meet Kristen at a group signing in Cincinnati. She is, and I say this with absolutely no exaggeration, one of the sweetest and funniest people I've been lucky enough to cross paths with, and I feel privileged to call her friend.

If you haven't added The Glass Arrow to your must-have lists yet, I hope this letter has you remedying that immediately :-)

(Found in the barn behind The Garden)

Aya,

It’s night in the city, though it hardly looks or sounds it. The sky’s gray as muddy water, and the trash machine behind the barn is grinding something fierce. It’s one of two things that’s kept me awake since I came here.

The other is this lumpy bedroll. (That’s a joke, Aya.)

I can see you from the slatted window in the loft, curled up on the hard ground with your wolf as a pillow. You look like all the things I want to feel. Calm and steady. Still and unburdened. The daylight will change you – but this heavy air doesn’t drag you down. It makes you taller. It makes me taller, watching you.

There are things about me you don’t know. Things I can’t tell you. If you ever found them out, you’d probably beat on me for a good while for lying to you. At least, you’d try. (That’s not an invitation to try.)

There are things I want to tell you, though. More things than there are stars in the sky outside this dirty city. Things like, you’re not as good at throwing a ball as you’d like to think. And that I’m safe, and you and me, we aren’t so different.

There are other things, too. Crazy things I’m only writing now because I know you can’t read them. I know what you sing for. Your voice stays in my head, even in the daytime. You are stronger than iron. I like your ankles, and your wild black hair, and the way you say Kiran.

And if I could talk, Aya, I’d talk to you.

Don’t give up. I won’t give up either.
Kiran

*Jenny dies a little inside*

I love you, Kiran :-)

• • • • • • • • • • • 

THE GLASS ARROW

(releases February 10th from Tor Teen)

Once there was a time when men and women lived as equals, when girl babies were valued, and women could belong only to themselves. But that was ten generations ago. Now women are property, to be sold and owned and bred, while a strict census keeps their numbers manageable and under control. The best any girl can hope for is to end up as some man’s forever wife, but most are simply sold and resold until they’re all used up.

Only in the wilderness, away from the city, can true freedom be found. Aya has spent her whole life in the mountains, looking out for her family and hiding from the world, until the day the Trackers finally catch her.

Stolen from her home, and being groomed for auction, Aya is desperate to escape her fate and return to her family, but her only allies are a loyal wolf she’s raised from a pup and a strange mute boy who may be her best hope for freedom . . . if she can truly trust him.

Goodreads • Amazon • B&N

• • • • • • • • • • • • 

KRISTEN SIMMONS

Kristen Simmons writes young adult fiction - the kind that's dark and scary but generally involves some kissing. She's the author of ARTICLE 5 (2012), BREAKING POINT (2013), and THREE (2014), as well as THE GLASS ARROW (2015), and METALTOWN (2016). Words cannot describe how happy all this makes her.

Website • Facebook • Twitter 

• • • • • • • • • • •

GIVEAWAY

Danny and I have (what we think) is a pretty fabulous giveaway that will run for the entirety of this event with 5 winners in total when all is said and done:

• Winners 1-4: Each will get a book of your choice from one of the participating authors. (Open internationally as long as Book Depository ships to you! )
• Winner 5  : Hardcover copy of LAILAH by Nikki Kelley plus some awesomely cute swag (international ). Prize is provided by author - thank you so much!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't forget to check back both here and at Bewitched Bookworms every Friday in February for more letters and a whole lot more love from these fantastic authors:

• Kristen Simmons (The Glass Arrow)
• Mindee Arnett (Polaris, The Nightmare Dilemma)
• Melissa Landers (Invaded)
• Sara Raasch (Snow Like Ashes)
• Emery Lord (The Start of Me and You)
• Liza Palmer (Girl Before a Mirror)
• Laura Lee Guhrke (Catch a Falling Heiress)
• Anna Banks (Joyride)
• Heather Demetrios (I'll Meet You There)
• Nikki Kelly (The Styclar Saga)
• Paula Stokes (Liars, Inc.)
• & More!

Review: Breaking Point

BREAKING POINT
Article 5 #2
Kristen Simmons
Young Adult/Dystopian
400 pages
Tor Teen
Available Now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
After faking their deaths to escape from prison, Ember Miller and Chase Jennings have only one goal: to lay low until the Federal Bureau of Reformation forgets they ever existed.

Near-celebrities now for the increasingly sensationalized tales of their struggles with the government, Ember and Chase are recognized and taken in by the Resistance—an underground organization working to systematically take down the government. At headquarters, all eyes are on the sniper, an anonymous assassin taking out FBR soldiers one by one. Rumors are flying about the sniper’s true identity, and Ember and Chase welcome the diversion….

Until the government posts its most-wanted list, and their number one suspect is Ember herself.

Orders are shoot to kill, and soldiers are cleared to fire on suspicion alone. Suddenly Ember can’t even step onto the street without fear of being recognized, and “laying low” is a joke. Even members of the Resistance are starting to look at her sideways.

With Chase urging her to run, Ember must decide: Go into hiding…or fight back?

MY THOUGHTS
Breaking Point is a thrilling sequel, every page vibrating with tension on both physical and emotional levels as Chase and Ember take up the fight of the Resistance. This is a story we close the back cover on with our guts roiling and clashing due to the myriad of conflicting emotions, refusing to settle even though we’ve exited Ember’s brutal world of chaos and compliance and returned to the safety of our reality. Ms. Simmons makes the most of every single page in this lengthy tale, perfectly balancing the quiet moments with the action-packed ones to ensure our hearts slowly migrate from the safety and protection of the center of our chests to our sleeves, where they sit vulnerable and exposed to a continued emotional onslaught.

Ember shows a great deal of growth in this second installment, her lingering anger at Chase for his initial enlistment as well as the role he played in her mother’s death slowly fading, allowing her to see Chase more clearly without the red haze of pain clouding her vision. Her progress is of course gradual–her impulsiveness and quick temper still present and accounted for in the first half of the book–but she slowly comes to realize the effect her behavior has on those around her, especially Chase, and she proceeds to make a concerted effort to listen when it’s asked of her, act when she’s needed, and provide support when her pillars of strength start to crumble.

Chase and Ember’s romance is a beacon of light amidst the grit and violence of a terrifying possible future, their relationship perhaps even more tense in this book than in book one as weighted silences and meaningless conversations mask the anxiety and pain churning beneath the surface. Where their initial lack of communication would normally be frustrating, we know in this case the poisonous quiet between them is borne of fear rather than the anger we saw from both in book one, and we simply cannot begrudge them the survival instinct to curl in on themselves in preparation for warding off whatever blow is headed their way next. Ms. Simmons beautifully stuns us with one all-too brief scene though; a fleeting moment between Chase and Ember that suddenly rights scales that had been steadily slipping farther and farther off balance, lifting a weight from our chests and allowing us to suck in a deep breathe for the first time since we started reading.

Overall, Breaking Point is a magnificent follow up to Article 5, captivating us from the very first page and never once losing our rapt attention. Some may still be disappointed by the lack of detailed explanation as to how this post-apocalyptic world came to be, but in my opinion, what we do know is enough to be able to fill in the blanks ourselves, well aware of how easily a shift in power can occur when the world is suddenly thrown into anarchy. We’re left with things very much unresolved, but we are given the satisfaction of one of Ember and Chase’s main goals in this second book being achieved, thereby making the wait for book three more bearable as we revel in one success even as we despair of a separate massive failure.

Rating: 4.5/5