Jenny Pox Birthday Celebration + Giveaway

Today I'm thrilled to be a part of the birthday celebration for JL Bryan's paranormal novel Jenny Pox. Jenny Pox is a disturbing and beautifully challenging read, but also one that slipped beneath my skin before I was really aware of it, ensuring her story has been one to stick with me for a very long time. JL is joining me on the blog today to share with us a little bit about the girl with whom I share a name, and to give us all some very exciting news!

Today is the second anniversary of the publication of Jenny Pox!  And that makes it a great day to announce that there will be a fourth Jenny Pox book, something I wasn’t expecting.  Jenny Plague-Bringer, the grand finale for the series, will be out this fall...details to follow in the near future!  You heard it here first!

For the hop, I’m doing a short guest post about each of the six paranormal characters from the series.  Appropriately enough, we’ll begin here on Jenny’s blog with a short sketch of Jenny Morton...

WHO IS JENNY?

Jenny, the lead character of the series, was born with an unfortunate paranormal condition: her touch infects and kills other living things with a deadly supernatural plague. 

We see glimpses of her childhood and how this has affected her life, making contact with others impossible.  She avoids any contact with others, and so has an intensely lonely life. She lives with her father in a ramshackle house in the woods outside town, because her mother died in childbirth.  Being dirt poor, and having the eccentric habit of wearing gloves at all times, even in summer (to avoid touching anyone) only make her more isolated from everyone around her.  For most of the first book, she’s eighteen and a senior in high school.

Jenny’s life changes when she meets Seth, a boy with an opposite power, a touch that heals.  He is the first boy she can touch (without killing him...).  Unfortunately, Seth’s pretty, popular girlfriend Ashleigh has a secret, devilish power of her own, and she is quite an evil manipulator with a lifelong hatred of Jenny.  Ashleigh uses her own paranormal touch to turn the world against Jenny...who only has one way to strike back.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s the Jenny Pox trailer!



The Jenny Pox ebook is currently free on Amazon, Smashwords, Apple, and Sony, and cheap on Nook!

GIVEAWAY!

To celebrate Jenny’s birthday, and this exciting new announcement, we’re offering a giveaway of a full set of Jenny Pox, Tommy Nightmare, and Alexander Death, autographed and inscribed to the winner!

How to enter: A comment on each blog on the hop counts as an entry, so you can enter up to six times!  Here are all the blog hosts and the paranormal character they’re featuring:

Supernatural Snark (Jenny)
Xpresso Reads (Ashleigh)
Between the Pages (Seth)
Bewitched Bookworms (Tommy)
J.L. Bryan’s Books (Esmeralda)
Bookish Brunette (Alexander)

Random.org will pick a winning blog & then a winning comment!  Must be 13 to enter, U.S. only.  Please include email or Twitter contact information with your comment in case you win!

Links for stalking J.L. Bryan:
Website
Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Goodreads
Amazon US Author Profile
Amazon UK Author Profile 

Review + Giveaway: Tommy Nightmare

TOMMY NIGHTMARE
(Jenny Pox #2)
J.L. Bryan
Paranormal Young Adult
e-book
Available Now
Received from author for review

Warning: Contains mild spoilers from Jenny Pox

THE STORY
Tommy, like Jenny, has a touch that repels those around him. With the briefest contact, Tommy instills fear–so much fear that when he's not in control of it he literally scares people to death.

Escaping from a miserable foster home at a young age, Tommy grows up and begins to understand his power and how he can control and manipulate those he touches. After seeing a television interview with Ashleigh Goodling, Jenny's nemesis, Tommy makes for the small town where Jenny recently unleashed her power in all it's gruesome glory.

While Tommy searches for Ashleigh, feeling drawn to her for reasons he doesn't understand, Jenny struggles with the aftermath of her actions and her growing insecurities with Seth as he prepares to head off to college. She's also beginning to remember some of her past incarnations, making some startling discoveries as to just how she, Seth, Ashleigh, and Tommy, as well as two new individuals are all connected.

MY THOUGHTS
Tommy Nightmare returns us to a world that causes anxiety and dread to curl up and make themselves at home in our guts, any brief moment of happiness overshadowed by a tangible sense of unease as we know Mr. Bryan has no qualms with putting his characters through physical and emotional turmoil. We plunge forward, blowing through pages held tightly with knuckles gone white from strain, fearing what's in store next might just be worse for Jenny than what she's already experienced, and we emerge from the story with worry lines etched into our faces where there were none before as evidence of our involvement with the story. Tommy Nightmare is not an emotionally easy read, instead it's one where we know things will only get worse before they get better, but Mr. Bryan gives us a flicker of light just when the darkness starts to consume us, and we cling to its tiny brilliance as we hope for Jenny to find the happiness she so deserves.

The reappearance of Ashleigh–a character so detestable we will our hatred of her to be strong enough to singe every appearance of her name from the pages so we don't have to see it any longer–causes us to groan in disgust while begrudgingly admitting to an appreciation of a character who can inspire such an intense reaction. Every word out of her mouth and every action she takes ratchets our apprehension up a notch, knowing her every move is calculated and planned in order to inflict the most pain on the object of her wrath. She's hauntingly villainous, her ability to inspire love with a touch warped beyond all recognition as she uses it to enslave and manipulate, and we read every page hoping someone will share our immunity to her grotesque charm.

Despite being the title character, Tommy's role in this story is surprisingly small, his opening scene enough to raise our hackles and bring forth our protective instincts, but his actions after those first few pages skew our perception of him so we are left in an emotional limbo as to whether or not he's deserving of our affection. We want desperately to believe in him since he's Ashleigh's opposite and therefore capable of resisting her touch, but his easy compliance to her every suggestion without that coercion keeps us wary and defensive. In addition to Tommy, we are introduced to several new characters, each with a unique ability that piques our curiosity and makes us want to read faster in order to find out how they fit into the magnificent puzzle Mr. Bryan has so painstakingly developed.

Tommy Nightmare is highly recommended for older young adult audiences as the sexual content, though not hugely prominent, is a bit more detailed in nature, and the suffocating darkness at times threatens to overwhelm. Luckily for us however, this story, though often a heavy burden to bear when Jenny is mistreated and betrayed again and again, ends by bringing a hesitant smile to our lips as Ashleigh's plans for Jenny are temporarily interrupted by the appearance of a new character. Though we know inevitably the smile will fade as quickly as it came when we get our hands on the next book, it's enough to mildly relax the muscles we've held rigid in reaction to the emotional maelstrom into which these characters thrust us.

Rating: 4/5

GIVEAWAY

Mr. Bryan has generously offered up a signed paperback copy of JENNY POX to one lucky commenter! Please note this is a copy of the first book in the series, not the second which is reviewed above (you can read my review of JENNY POX here). To enter, just leave a comment with a valid email address so I can contact you if you win. Giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only and will run through midnight EST on Friday, June 3rd after which time a winner will be chosen and announced on the blog. Good luck everyone!