Dare You To Blog Tour: Interview with Ryan + A Giveaway

Today I can barely contain my excitement over the fact that I have Ryan from Katie McGarry's upcoming release Dare You To joining me on the blog to answer a few questions. *takes deep breath* I fell in love with last year's Pushing the Limits, and like nearly everyone else, have been anxiously awaiting Beth's story. I ended up loving Dare You To as much as, if not more, than Pushing the Limits and I want to say a huge thank you to Kismet Book Touring and Katie McGarry for giving me access to Ryan ;-) Be sure and check the bottom of the post for a couple amazing giveaways as well as the full list of participating blogs. Welcome to Supernatural Snark Ryan!

Let’s say after all the events of Dare You To you are able to travel back in time to your first meeting with Beth in the line of the fast food restaurant. How would you alter your previous approach to ensure a more favorable outcome given what you’ve learned about Beth over the past several months?

Great question, but knowing Beth like I do now, I don’t think there’s anything I could have done to change our course. She doesn’t trust easily and would have been wary of me regardless of what I had done.

If Beth were asked to describe her feelings toward you after that first meeting, how scared of her answer would you be?

(Ryan chuckles) I don’t have to be terrified of her answer, because I already know. If Beth’s anything, she’s straightforward. She didn’t like me. She told me she didn’t like me and I believe she later threatened to take away my ability to have children.

Seriously though, I rattled Beth when we first met and she has a hard time admitting things like that.

You have just a few minutes alone with Isaiah and you can tell he’s in a relatively good mood. He might even humor you by answering a question or two. What do you ask him?

I don’t really have a question for him as much as I’d like to thank him. He protected Beth for years—kept her safe when her mom couldn’t or wouldn’t. For that, I’m grateful.

Beth doesn’t need to do anything special to impress you, but if she really wanted to by planning a unique date without asking you directly what you wanted to do, what are a couple of clues or hints we could give her to help her with that endeavor?

She can’t go wrong with tickets to a Cincinnati Reds game. Honestly, I like spending quiet time with Beth. She knows that. I think that’s why she sneaks over in the middle of the night to be with me.

If there was ever a moment during your courtship of Beth that you wished for the sudden arrival of a telepathic ability so you could know exactly what she was thinking, what moment would that have been?

Can I have the ability for our entire relationship? I love Beth, she’s got one hell of a poker face so I’m always trying to guess her thoughts.

Looking back though, I wish that I could have known her thoughts the night she tried to run away. I didn’t know what was going down at the time and looking back, if I had known, I could have handled things differently.

Outside of anything relating to Beth, what’s one dare you absolutely regret accepting?

Logan and I accidentally singed the upholstery of Lacy’s car once on a dare. She’s still pissed at us.

If you were to fictionalize the story of your life, what would the first line of that novel be?

Meeting Beth is the huge catalyst in my life so I’ll go with the opening: I’m not interested in second place. Never have been. Never will be.

It’s that attitude that helped me define what I want for my future and it helped with winning over Beth.

• • • • • • • • • • 

DARE YOU TO

An emotionally-charged roller coaster ride that will keep you turning the pages well into the night, DARE YOU TO tells the story of seventeen-year-old Beth Risk, who finds her life turned upside down at the beginning of her senior year. Forced to leave the mother she’s always protected and the only friends she’s ever known, Beth must start over at a new school, in a new town, with an uncle she hasn’t seen in years.

The last thing she wants is to catch the eye of the town’s golden boy, popular jock Ryan Stone, who seems determined to win her over for all the wrong reasons. But when she discovers that Ryan has secrets of his own, Beth is drawn to him despite herself. Soon she’ll have to make a choice—between the past that beckons her back, and the life she never dreamed possible.

With PUSHING THE LIMITS, Harlequin TEEN introduced a singular new voice that continues to resonate with teens and adults alike. With DARE YOU TO, Katie McGarry cements her place as a master of contemporary young adult fiction.

Releases May 28th from HarlequinTEEN

Goodreads • Amazon • B&N • IndieBound • BookDepository 

• • • • • • • • • • 

KATIE MCGARRY

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

Katie is the author of the full-length Young Adult novels PUSHING THE LIMITS and DARE YOU TO, and the e-novella CROSSING THE LINE. Her debut novel, PUSHING THE LIMITS, is a 2012 Goodreads Choice Finalist for YA Fiction and an RT Book Reviews 2012 Reviewer’s Choice Awards Nominee for Young Adult Contemporary Novel.

Writing has given Katie an excuse to pursue her passions. Research for her books has provided her with the amazing opportunity to train with baseball players, ride along in a drag car at ninety-six miles per hour and experience boxing and mixed martial arts. The most memorable moments for Katie are when she speaks to groups of teenagers about her research, writing and the truth that no dream is out of reach. Katie would love to hear from her readers.

Novels by Katie McGarry:

    • Pushing the Limits (available now)
    • Crossing the Line (e-novella, available now)
    • Dare You To (available May 28th 2013)
    • Crash Into You (coming soon...)

Website • Goodreads • Facebook • Twitter

• • • • • • • • • • 

GIVEAWAY

Thanks to the outstanding teams at HarlequinTEEN and Kismet Book Touring, I have a couple of unbelievable giveaways to share with you all today!

First up is your choice of either Pushing the Limits or Dare You To, just fill out the Rafflecopter form below. THEN, in addition to your choice of books, filling out the form below also enters you to win the grand prize pack (pictured above, look at all that awesome!), so good luck everyone!

The prize pack includes:

   • 1 copy of Pushing The Limits
   • 1 copy of Dare You To
   • 1 brown leather cuff bracelet
   • 1 iPod
   • 1 iTunes gift card
   • 1 personalized Dare You To baseball jersey

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Though this is the final stop on the tour, don't forget to check out all the previous tour stops for more chances to win!

Monday, April 29th – Bewitched Bookworms – Excerpt & Song
Tuesday, April 30th - Harlequin Blog
Wednesday, May 1sh – The Irish Banana 
Thursday, May 2nd – Review - Tyngas Reviews
Friday, May 3rd – Evie Bookish 

Monday, May 6th - YA – Bibliophile
Tuesday, May 7th – Review - Realm of Fiction
Wednesday, May 8th – Book Swarm 
Thursday, May 9th – Review - Book Nook
Friday, May 10th –  Alice Marvels
 
Monday, May 13th -  Xpresso Reads
Tuesday, May 14th – Review - Chapter by Chapter 
Wednesday, May 15th – Book and A Latte 
Thursday, May 16th – Review - Blog Girl 
Friday, May 17th – Supernatural Snark 

Review + Giveaway: The Scourge

THE SCOURGE
The Scourge #1
A.G. Henley
Paranormal Young Adult/Dystopian-ish
242 pages
Self-published
Available now
Received courtesy of Kismet Book Touring for review

THE STORY (From Goodreads)
Seventeen-year-old Groundling, Fennel, is Sightless. She's never been able to see her lush forest home, but she knows its secrets. She knows how the shadows shift when she passes under a canopy of trees. She knows how to hide in the cool, damp caves when the Scourge comes. She knows how devious and arrogant the Groundlings' tree-dwelling neighbors, the Lofties, can be.

And she's always known this day would come—the day she faces the Scourge alone.

The Sightless, like Fenn, are mysteriously protected from the Scourge, the gruesome creatures roaming the forests, reeking of festering flesh and consuming anything—and anyone—living. A Sightless Groundling must brave the Scourge and bring fresh water to the people of the forest. Today, that task becomes Fenn's.

Fenn will have a Lofty Keeper, Peree, as her companion. Everyone knows the Lofties wouldn’t hesitate to shoot an arrow through the back of an unsuspecting Groundling like Fenn, but Peree seems different. A boy with warm, rough hands who smells like summer, he is surprisingly kind and thoughtful. Although Fenn knows his people are treacherous, she finds herself wanting to trust him.

As their forest community teeters on the brink of war, Fenn and Peree must learn to work together to survive the Scourge and ensure their people’s survival. But when Fenn uncovers a secret that shatters her truths, she’s forced to decide who and what to protect—her people, her growing love for Peree, or the elusive dream of lasting peace in the forest.

MY THOUGHTS
A book without much hype to prepare us in terms of expectations, The Scourge surprises us as we turn the first page of what is essentially a blank canvas, our opinion completely uncolored by outside influence and our minds wide open as we wonder just what's in store for us. What we find waiting is a hugely engaging story with a fascinating world and well-developed characters, the type who are an extraordinary balance of strength and vulnerability, fighting conflicts both internal and external and encouraging us to pick up their war cry and battle right beside them. Before we even realize it, the hands of the nearest clock are suddenly in a drastically different place than when last we checked them, and we can only shake our heads in delighted shock at how quickly time has passed since everything The Scourge has to offer utterly consumed us.

Fennel is an exceptional young woman, completely sightless in a dangerous world, but yet she, of all the people in their village, is the most equipped for survival. It seems the Scourge–zombie-like creatures who roam the woods around her home and are known to brutally attack and devour whatever’s in their path–don’t harm those who can’t see them, allowing Fennel to venture out for water while the rest of her village retreats to the safety of caves until the Scourge leaves the area once again. Her fear when she’s faced with the putrid smell and terrifying moans escaping the rotting corpses who shuffle along beside her as she gets water is palpable, but she never lets it overwhelm her, finding strength with the assistance of Peree to single-handedly ensure the survival of everyone in the village.

The romance between Fennel and Peree is beautifully executed, the inherent distrust between Fennel’s people, the Groundlings, and Peree’s people, the Lofties, something that takes a while for our two young protagonists to wade through, and we as readers are beyond grateful for the slow progression. Each small step forward in their relationship is a subtle change we’re given time to fully absorb and appreciate, their forced partnership slowly evolving into desired companionship, tentative attraction, and then finally admitted affection, a step that sets the butterflies in our bellies to fluttering at an unprecedented speed.

The only minor complaint with this story is a lack of clarity at times in terms of the world building. We’re not given much information as to how this post-apocalyptic world came to be, or how the Scourge themselves became sick initially, but luckily for us, the journey Peree and Fennel embark on so thoroughly captivates and entertains us with what we do know that it’s difficult to fixate on what we don’t. This first installment concludes nicely, leaving us at a logical stopping place even though all of our questions are far from answered, and we put it down infinitely satisfied despite some of our lingering curiosities with regard to world and its parameters.

Rating: 4/5 

GIVEAWAY

A huge thank you to Kismet Book Touring and A.G. Henley for offering up the absolutely fantastic giveaway going on throughout this tour! To enter, please just fill out the Rafflecopter form below. Good luck everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway