Unhooked Blog Tour: Interview + Giveaway!

Today I'm super excited to kick off the promotional tour for Unhooked, an entirely new take on the world of Neverland thanks to author Lisa Maxwell. Lisa was nice enough to answer a few fun questions for me about what readers can expect when they crack the spine, so I hope you guys enjoy. Welcome to Supernatural Snark Lisa!

Before being kidnapped and taken to a Neverland inhabited by monsters, what would Gwen say was her biggest fear?

Before Neverland, Gwen’s biggest fear was that people would realize how unstable her mother was and separate the two of them. She grew up fast, because she knew that if people really knew what her mother was like—the strange fears, the delusions about monsters chasing them, the erratic behavior—she might be taken away from her mom. She’s worked her whole like to make their life appear as normal as possible, and that’s all she’s ever wanted to be—normal.

If Gwen could get those of us in this world a message about the dangers of the Fey, what would her most dire warning about them be?

Human life means less than nothing to the Fey. They aren’t interested in us, unless we get in their way. And if that happens, well… good luck. Because with the glamour, you won’t even see them coming.

If you somehow knew ahead of time you were going to be taken to Neverland along with Gwen and Olivia, what one character from another piece of YA fiction would you beg to teach you a course on supernatural survival training before you went?

I’d have to say the Darkling. A) because who wouldn’t want to sit in a class and watch him teach? Yes, Please. And B) I’m not sure that you really have a chance to survive in this version of Neverland if you aren’t willing to play a little dirty to get what you want.

Gwen has a choice between trusting a fairy-tale hero and a young pirate in this story. If she had time to make a pros and cons list to help her figure out what to do, what’s one pro that she would list for each of them?

The only pro that matters is “Is he trying to kill me?” Too bad that the answer for each is… maybe?

If you could take any other fairy-tale (or myth/fable) world and turn it completely on its head, which would you most like to recreate in your own way?

What a great question! It’s a hard one, too, because as much as I did turn the Neverland we know on its head in this book, what I really did was go back to the source material. For UNHOOKED, I really wanted to bring out a part of the original story that gets forgotten, because the Neverland we know is so muted and Disney-fied that we don’t realize just how dark Peter Pan really was. Snow White might be interesting to do, though. Or maybe Hansel and Gretel? I like the idea of characters venturing out into the unknown and figuring out what they’re made of.

Thanks so much for stopping by Lisa!

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UNHOOKED

From “talented wordsmith” (Publishers Weekly) Lisa Maxwell comes a lush, atmospheric fantasy novel filled with twists and turns about a girl who is kidnapped and brought to an island inhabited by fairies, a roguish ship captain, and bloodthirsty beasts.

For as long as she can remember, Gwendolyn Allister has never had a place to call home. Her mother believes they are being hunted by brutal monsters, and those delusions have brought them to London, far from the life Gwen had finally started to build for herself. Gwen’s only saving grace is that her best friend, Olivia, is with her for the summer.

But shortly after their arrival, the girls are kidnapped by shadowy creatures and dragged to a world of flesh-eating sea hags and dangerous Fey. And Gwen begins to realize that maybe her mother isn’t so crazy after all…

Gwen discovers that this new world she inhabits is called Neverland, but it’s nothing like the Neverland you’ve heard about in stories. Here, good and evil lose their meaning and memories slip like water through your fingers. As Gwen struggles to remember where she came from and tries to find a way home, she must choose between trusting the charming fairy-tale hero who says all the right things and the captivating pirate who promises to keep her safe.

Caught in the ultimate battle between good and evil, with time running out and her enemies closing in, Gwen is forced to finally face the truths she’s been hiding from all along. But can she save Neverland without losing herself?

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LISA MAXWELL

Lisa Maxwell is the author of Sweet Unrest, Gathering Deep (Flux, Fall 2015) and Unhooked (Simon Pulse, Spring 2016). When she's not writing books, she's an English professor at a local college. She lives near DC with her very patient husband and two not-so patient boys. 

Twitter • Facebook • Goodreads • Pinterest • Tumblr • Instagram

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GIVEAWAY

As a thank you to the lovely authors who blurbed UNHOOKED Lisa is giving away…

• (1) winner will receive a signed finished copy of UNHOOKED, a large Neverland map, and a Funko Pop Captain Hook, US Only.
• (5) winners will receive a swag pack containing a NVR sticker, bookmark, postcard, other stickers, US only.  

 

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Don't forget to check out the rest of the tour for more interviews, reviews and guest posts!
 
WEEK ONE
1/25/2016- Supernatural Snark- Interview  
1/26/2016- Seeing Double In Neverland- Review  
1/27/2016- Please Feed the Bookworm- Guest Post  
1/28/2016- Stories & Sweeties- Review  
1/29/2016- A Glass Of Wine- Interview

WEEK TWO

2/1/2016- A Reader Under The Sea- Review

2/2/2016- Two Chicks on Books- Guest Post

2/3/2016- Owl Always Be Reading- Review

2/4/2016- Lili's Reflections- Interview

2/5/2016- Mundie Moms- Review

Ruins Blog Tour: Timeline Scavenger Hunt + Giveaway

Today I'm crazy excited to be a part of the promotional tour for the final book in the Partials Sequence series by Dan Wells, Ruins. Dan had a really fun and creative idea for this tour, with each stop revealing a new piece of the timeline that details how the war with the Partials came to be. I have years 2064 to 2066 to share with you at this stop, but be sure and check out the full list of participating blogs (starting with Magical Urban Fantasy Reads) for the complete story as well as the chance to earn additional entries in the giveaway (details at the bottom of the post)!

TIMELINE: YEARS 2064 TO 2066

2064

Anti-Partial sentiment grows stronger; balanced by a small but growing pro-Partials movement that is very clear on what they hate (poor jobs, poor working conditions, a return to slavery, social discrimination, etc.) but embarrassingly devoid of any real solutions. The primary problem is that nobody seems willing to accept Partials as people: they are remarkably people-like, but they're still just organic machines, grown in a lab, perceived more as weapons than as soldiers. The only pro-Partial movement to gain any serious traction is the Eurasian Reconstruction crowd, who wants to use their million-Partial army as an actual army, not “invading” Eurasia but simply “policing” it, helping them to recover from their economic collapse. This makes the rest of the world incredibly nervous.

2065

Partial unrest reaches a tipping point, spurred by poverty, racism, and hate crimes (from both sides). Inevitably, the Partials revolt, and the war that follows sweeps across the country at lightning speed. Three weeks into the Partial War, faced with an almost unwinnable situation, the US president enacts Failsafe Protocol, but it doesn't work—the Partials continue to run rampant, and America slips further out of human control. Worse still, a new disease has emerged, seemingly engineered to spread through the human population more efficiently than any natural illness. The disease, christened Rappiomentis but known primarily as RM, quickly jumps the borders and spreads across the world, killing humans in unprecedented billions. The Partials aren't even fighting anymore, but it's too late. With the human race suddenly and horribly facing the very real threat of extinction, the US military creates the Last Fleet, a group of warships armed to the teeth in a kamikaze run up the Hudson River, hoping to detonate their nuclear payload near the Partial headquarters of White Plains, New York. The Partials destroy this fleet in the last and bloodiest battle of the Partial War, and then it's over: not just the war, but everything. The tiny handful of humans left alive on the planet call this the Break: the end of the world.

2066

The human stragglers—those lucky few with a natural immunity to RM—try to gather together. The Partials back off and start putting out fires, sometimes literally, focusing on making sure the world's nuclear power plants don't melt down or explode. Some Partials try to help the last human stragglers gather together, though they have to be very secretive about this, because the humans still blame the Partials for RM, and no human will willingly trust a Partial. They do their best to guide them toward Long Island, as a resource-rich location in a closed system, where the Partials can keep an eye on them and keep them safe. This hands-on attitude is not shared among all the Partials, however, and communication between the species is soon cut off altogether when the few friendly Partials are forced to turn their attention to internecine squabbles within their own society. The human refugees gather around the most modern hospital they can find—Nassau University, in a town called East Meadow—and build their new community there, using solar panels to restart the fallow genetics equipment and continue their hopeless task of curing RM. There may be more survivors on other continents, but as far as the people of East Meadow are aware they are the only human beings left on Earth.

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RUINS

Partials #3

Kira, Samm, and Marcus fight to prevent a final war between Partials and humans in the gripping final installment in the Partials Sequence, a series that combines the thrilling action of The Hunger Games with the provocative themes of Blade Runner and The Stand.

There is no avoiding it—the war to decide the fate of both humans and Partials is at hand. Both sides hold in their possession a weapon that could destroy the other, and Kira Walker has precious little time to prevent that from happening. She has one chance to save both species and the world with them, but it will only come at great personal cost.

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THE PARTIALS SEQUENCE SERIES

ISOLATION (Partials #0.5)

Two decades before the events of Partials, the world was locked in a different battle for survival: a global war for the last remaining oil reserves on the planet. It was for the Isolation War that the American government contracted the ParaGen Corporation to manufacture the Partials—our last hope in reclaiming energy independence from China. And it was on these fields of battle that the seeds of humanity’s eventual destruction were sown.

Isolation takes us back to the front lines of this war, a time when mankind’s ambition far outstripped its foresight. Heron, a newly trained Partial soldier who specializes in infiltration, is sent on a mission deep behind enemy lines. What she discovers there has far-reaching implications—not only for the Isolation War, but for Partials and humans alike long after this war is over.

A powerful take of our world on the brink, Isolation gives readers a glimpse into the history from which Partials was born—as well as clues to where the Partials Sequence is heading next

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PARTIALS (Partials #1)

The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what’s left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she’s not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them—connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

Dan Wells, acclaimed author of I Am Not a Serial Killer, takes readers on a pulsepounding journey into a world where the very concept of what it means to be human is in question—one where our humanity is both our greatest liability and our only hope for survival.

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FRAGMENTS (Partials #2)

Kira Walker has found the cure for RM, but the battle for the survival of humans and Partials is just beginning. Kira has left East Meadow in a desperate search for clues to who she is. That the Partials themselves hold the cure for RM in their blood cannot be a coincidence—it must be part of a larger plan, a plan that involves Kira, a plan that could save both races. Her companions are Afa Demoux, an unhinged drifter and former employee of ParaGen, and Samm and Heron, the Partials who betrayed her and saved her life, the only ones who know her secret. But can she trust them?

Meanwhile, back on Long Island, what’s left of humanity is gearing up for war with the Partials, and Marcus knows his only hope is to delay them until Kira returns. But Kira’s journey will take her deep into the overgrown wasteland of postapocalyptic America, and Kira and Marcus both will discover that their greatest enemy may be one they didn’t even know existed.

The second installment in the pulse-pounding Partials saga is the story of the eleventh hour of humanity’s time on Earth, a journey deep into places unknown to discover the means—and even more important, a reason—for our survival.

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DAN WELLS

Dan Wells writes in a variety of genres, from dark humor to science fiction to supernatural thriller. Born in Utah, he spent his early years reading and writing. He is the author of thePartials series and the John Cleaver series. He has been nominated for both the Hugo and the Campbell Award, and has won two Parsec Awards for his podcast Writing Excuses.

Website • Blog • Twitter • Facebook • Goodreads • Partials Facebook Page

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GIVEAWAY

Thanks to Dan and Rockstar Book Tours, I have an awesome giveaway to share with you all today. Up for grabs:

• Two sets of the trilogy (PARTIALS, FRAGMENTS, RUINS) signed by the author – US ONLY.

• Two PARTIALS T-shirts, one ParaGen and one Plague Baby – INTERNATIONAL. (Winners may select size of their choosing.)
 

To earn EXTRA ENTRIES, be sure and enter the secret word from today's post highlighted above, and don't forget to visit all the previous stops for more secret words and more chances to win! Please just fill out the Rafflecopter form below.

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WEEK ONE

3/3/2014- Magical Urban Fantasy Reads  
3/4/2014- Fiktshun
3/5/2014- Step Into Fiction 
3/6/2014- Two Chicks on Books  
3/7/2014- Fantasy Book Addict 

WEEK TWO

3/10/2014- Parajunkee 
3/11/2014- Tales of a Ravenous Reader
3/12/2014- Mundie Moms          
3/13/2014- Supernatural Snark 
3/14/2014- All Things Urban Fantasy