Guest Interview: Samantha Durante + Stitch

Today I'm really excited to welcome young adult author Samantha Durante to the blog to give us a little info about her newest release Stitch in the form of an interview. Samantha has put together a series of questions for main character Alessa to help us all get to know her a bit better, so I hope you enjoy!

Thanks so much, Alessa, for stopping by Supernatural Snark for this interview!  Tell me about yourself.

Thanks a lot for having me! My name is Alessa Khole and I just started my freshman year at Eastern State University. I’m taking your usual mix of liberal arts introductory classes, and school hasn’t been too challenging so far, which is lucky since the rest of my life has been a bit of mess lately… I lost my parents in a car accident last year and I still haven’t really gotten over it, so adjusting to college life has been difficult, to say the least. And it certainly hasn’t helped that my sorority house is haunted!

HAUNTED! Oh wow, I’m sure that HAS been an adjustment! What’s the ghost like?

Well, it could be worse! He’s actually quite… attractive. Tall, soft brown hair, dreamy blue eyes, you get the picture… And it doesn’t seem like he’s out to scare me or anything – actually, most of the time he doesn’t even seem to notice I’m there. But for some reason, whenever I see him I feel this crazy surge of emotions that I can’t really explain. Surprise and fear, of course, but also this deep sorrow and longing, and something bordering on recognition… I haven’t really figured out what that’s all about yet, but I can tell you this much – it’s draining.

So besides this ghost fella, are there any other special boys in your life?

This has been a major sticking point with my best friend, Janie. She would say that I have NOT been putting enough effort into meeting guys, but I just feel like I have so much else going on lately, boys are the last thing on my mind. So not really.  :-(  But there was this one guy… Nikhil. He was SO gorgeous, and we hung out at a party one night and we really seemed to hit it off …but then I chickened out when things started getting heated and I haven’t heard from him since, sigh.

What is your favorite college class and why? Your least favorite?

Hmm, none of my courses are really super interesting this semester – I took a lot of college-level classes in high school, so we’ve been learning a lot of repeat material – but I guess if I had to pick I’d go with physics. I just like that you can take any complicated physical reaction and break it down into a mathematical formula, and it just works. It’s so neat and tidy, which is something my life has NOT been for the past year, so it’s refreshing to work on something so straightforward.

What is the best and worst thing about living in a sorority house?

Oh, wow, I’m really not the sorority “type” so this is a bit of a loaded question for me! I definitely prefer to hang out just with one or two close friends, so being constantly surrounded by girls who I don’t really know that well has been difficult for me. Janie says I need to be more friendly, and she’s probably right… But I guess that’s also the good thing about living in a sorority (and why I chose to live there even though I knew it wasn’t necessarily my ideal) – it forces me to meet people and have a life, so that’s good.

So it seems like you’re living a pretty typical college life, besides the ghost.  Anything else interesting in store for you this semester?

Funny you should ask… As it turns out, there were quite a few surprises for me my first semester at ESU. And I mean BIG surprises – as in, by the end of the semester, I didn’t even recognize the life I was living at the beginning. My school?  Not the typical college I thought it was. And that ghost?  Not actually a ghost at all… I can’t say too much without spoiling it, but let’s just say that by the time I hit finals week, I had MUCH bigger concerns than grades or guys (well, with the exception of *one* guy…), the most important of which being how to get out of ESU alive. But you’ll have to read Stitch to find out all the details!

A huge thank you to Samantha and Alessa for stopping by! More information on Samantha and her books can be found here:

Website • Blog • Goodreads • Amazon • Twitter • Facebook

STITCH

Her heart races, her muscles coil, and every impulse in Alessa’s body screams at her to run… but yet she’s powerless to move.

Still struggling to find her footing after the sudden death of her parents, the last thing college freshman Alessa has the strength to deal with is the inexplicable visceral pull drawing her to a handsome ghostly presence. In between grappling with exams and sorority soirees – and disturbing recurring dreams of being captive in a futuristic prison hell – Alessa is determined to unravel the mystery of the apparition who leaves her breathless. But the terrifying secret she uncovers will find her groping desperately through her nightmares for answers.

Because what Alessa hasn’t figured out yet is that she’s not really a student, the object of her obsession is no ghost, and her sneaking suspicions that something sinister is lurking behind the walls of her university’s idyllic campus are only just scratching the surface…

The opening installment in a twist-laden trilogy, Stitch spans the genres of paranormal romance and dystopian sci-fi to explore the challenges of a society in transition, where morality, vision, and pragmatism collide leaving the average citizen to suffer the results.

Review: Poison

POISON

Bridget Zinn
Young Adult/Fantasy
288 pages
Disney Hyperion
Available March 12th
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Sixteen-year-old Kyra, a highly-skilled potions master, is the only one who knows her kingdom is on the verge of destruction—which means she’s the only one who can save it. Faced with no other choice, Kyra decides to do what she does best: poison the kingdom’s future ruler, who also happens to be her former best friend.

But, for the first time ever, her poisoned dart . . . misses.

Now a fugitive instead of a hero, Kyra is caught in a game of hide-and-seek with the king’s army and her potioner ex-boyfriend, Hal. At least she’s not alone. She’s armed with her vital potions, a too-cute pig, and Fred, the charming adventurer she can’t stop thinking about. Kyra is determined to get herself a second chance (at murder), but will she be able to find and defeat the princess before Hal and the army find her?

Kyra is not your typical murderer, and she’s certainly no damsel-in-distress—she’s the lovable and quick-witted hero of this romantic novel that has all the right ingredients to make teen girls swoon.

MY THOUGHTS
Poison, perhaps unsurprisingly given the publisher, is a lot like a Disney movie – sweet and fun with a nice balance of levity and seriousness to leave us with light hearts, smiles on our faces, and fond memories of the characters with whom we just spent a few hours. Kyra's world is easy to fall into despite some of its more fantastical elements, and the focus on potions and poisons as the trade of choice for our young heroine is more than unique enough to pique our interest from page one and hold it throughout. There's a lulling quality to this story, the way it progresses and unfolds almost effortless, creating a sense of comfort and familiarity even as Kyra finds herself in tight spot after tight spot.

Kyra herself is someone we want to know more about instantly, her assassination attempt on her best friend and heir to the throne something we're aware of from the first page, but we find ourselves completely in the dark for most of the book as to what motivated her to take such violent action. She's highly skilled at her chosen trade and has a cute sense of humor, though those positive attributes are tempered by an unfortunate tendency to cut and run from the deliciously handsome Fred and his adorable canine companion Langley, but overall she's an entertaining young woman to follow from one mini adventure to the next.

Those looking for a quick and light read with a nice mix of mystery, magic, romance and friendship, complete with unforgettable animal sidekicks, will thoroughly enjoy Ms. Zinn's debut novel, and will likely walk away from it warm and content with the experience. There's not a great deal of emotional intensity or heart-pounding conflict, Kyra's story instead reaching only a layer or two under surface level, but it's certainly the type of book to pick up for a little something fun and different.

Rating: 4/5

Waiting on Wednesday + Giveaway: Relic

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!

RELIC

Renee Collins

Paranormal Young Adult

Entangled Teen

September 3rd, 2013

THE STORY

After a raging fire consumes her town and kills her parents, Maggie Davis is on her own to protect her younger sister and survive best she can in the Colorado town of Burning Mesa. In Maggie’s world, the bones of long-extinct magical creatures such as dragons and sirens are mined and traded for their residual magical elements, and harnessing these relics’ powers allows the user to wield fire, turn invisible, or heal even the worst of injuries.

Working in a local saloon, Maggie befriends the spirited showgirl Adelaide and falls for the roguish cowboy Landon. But when she proves to have a particular skill at harnessing the relics’ powers, Maggie is whisked away to the glamorous hacienda of Álvar Castilla, the wealthy young relic baron who runs Burning Mesa. Though his intentions aren’t always clear, Álvar trains Maggie in the world of relic magic. But when the mysterious fires reappear in their neighboring towns, Maggie must discover who is channeling relic magic for evil before it’s too late. 

Relic is a thrilling adventure set in a wholly unique world, and a spell-binding story of love, trust, and the power of good.

This book sounds really different, and I think that's what I like most about it. A paranormal wild west of sorts. WIN. Also, when I first looked at the cover, I thought the markings around the title were simple tattoo-like scrollwork, but I love that they're actually line drawings of dragons and other creatures. I'm pretty sure I see a wolf in addition to the dragons, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say I see a mermaid (siren?) in the lower left corner. I really enjoy the fact that this cover is more than what it initially seems at first glance:)

More information on Relic and Renee Collins can be found here:

Website • Goodreads • Amazon

• • • • • • • • • • 

Thanks to Entangled Teen, I have a couple very special treats to accompany this WoW post. Not only do I have an exclusive excerpt to share with you, but I also have both a print ARC and e-galley up for grabs as well. *happy dance* To enter, please just fill out the Rafflecopter form below!

EXCERPT

The evening started off so calm. Crickets were singing in the sagebrush, and the oppressive heat of daytime had been swept away by a velvety breeze, which drifted in through the open windows. Ella was playing with Sassy’s new litter of kittens up in the loft, and Jeb sat by the fire, polishing the brand new gun he’d gotten for his fourteenth birthday the week before. I was scraping a broom over the floor of our little one-room house, trying my best to banish the red-orange sand that seemed our constant companion. But my mind soon drifted from my chores.

I stood in the open doorway, in the warm twilight, gazing at the vast desert beyond. It stretched endlessly in either direction, with nothing but sage and rocks and the occasional scrub brush to break the monotony. The dark smudge of Haydenville sat on the horizon, a small spit of a town, not much more interesting than the cactus. It always made me feel lonesome to stare out at the stillness around us.

As I leaned my head against the doorframe and watched the first star pierce through the indigo sky, a reckless wish burned in my heart. I gazed up and let myself envision a sleek dragon diving out of the scrape of clouds. A creature long extinct, returned to breathe life back into this barren place. I pictured the ancient animal curling around the moon and soaring over the red-rock cliffs beyond our house. But as it swept downward, a strange glow on the horizon caught my attention.

I straightened, squinting in the direction of the wavering light. It was a wide line of orange spreading across the dark landscape in the distance, painting the night sky a deep amber. The breeze that drifted past my cheek carried the distinct scent of smoke. This was no figment of my imagination. This was fire.

And it was coming from Haydenville. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The Nightmare Affair

THE NIGHTMARE AFFAIR
Arkwell Academy #1
Mindee Arnett
Paranormal Young Adult
367 pages
Tor Teen
Available Now
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Sixteen-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she’s a criminal. No, she’s a Nightmare.

Literally.

Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother’s infamy, is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker’s house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He’s hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn’t get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder.

Then Eli’s dream comes true.

Now Dusty has to follow the clues—both within Eli’s dreams and out of them—to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she’s up to and marks her as the next target.

MY THOUGHTS
The Nightmare Affair is a joy to read from first page to last, a rather unique paranormal entity combining with magic, mayhem and murder to ensure we while away the wee hours of the morning in a desperate attempt to devour Dusty’s story in one sitting. While a boarding school housing young men and women with extraordinary abilities is certainly nothing new, Ms. Arnett twists and molds the familiar into an entirely different shape with the introduction of Dusty as an actual Nightmare–someone who gets her sustenance from the dreams of others–and we can’t help but flip the pages as quickly as possible to learn everything there is to know about the ins and outs of dream invasion.

Dusty is a spectacularly entertaining protagonist, her sharp tongue eliciting a snort from us every time she puts it to use, and because she wields her wit and snark expertly, she never comes across as whiny or annoying. She remains firmly planted on the amusing side of the sarcasm line, making us laugh with her even as we highlight her responses and one-liners for future personal use. She also has admirable sense of self-preservation (something that causes us to rejoice), often finding herself in trouble but always reaching out to others for assistance instead of clutching her dangerous responsibility close to her chest and going it alone.

The romantic tension between Dusty and non-magical Eli is thick and palpable throughout, and Ms. Arnett proves again and again she is gifted at creating intimate moments without so much as the briefest of touches. Their relationship is not the typical new-hot-boy-at-school scenario despite its initial appearance as such, and we easily get sucked into their antagonism as they both struggle with the circumstances that require their close proximity, smiling hugely as things slowly change for them even as they both find themselves with other people. Theirs is a connection full of promise in this first book, declarations of love blissfully absent as a weighted friendship and a unique bond take their place, and we must resist the urge to fall to our knees and kiss Ms. Arnett's feet for the gift she’s given us in Eli and Dusty.

The only small flaw in an otherwise outstanding story is the predictability of certain players in the murder plot–a couple of them either easily recognizable or easily discarded from the onset–but others are a surprise, and we continually battle with ourselves throughout as we wonder whether or not certain people can be trusted. We’re left with a fully concluded story by the end of this first installment, a larger story arc in place but the smaller mystery solved in its entirety before we close the back cover, satisfying our need for the how’s and why’s of it all even as we look forward to seeing what’s in store for Dusty next.

Rating: 4/5

*For those of you in the Columbus/Dayton/Cincinnati (OH) area, Mindee is celebrating the release of The Nightmare Affair tonight (3/5) at 7pm EST at Books & Co in Dayton. Details can be found here!
 

Review: The Dark Heroine

THE DARK HEROINE: DINNER WITH A VAMPIRE
The Dark Heroine #1
Abigail Gibbs
Paranormal New Adult
549 pages
HarperCollins
Available March 5th
Received from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
One moment can change your life forever...

For Violet Lee, a chance encounter on a darkened street draws her into a world beyond her wildest imaginings, a timeless place of vast elegance and immeasurable wealth – of beautiful mansions and lavish parties – where a decadent group of friends live for pleasure alone. A place from which there is no escape...no matter how hard Violet tries.

Yet all the riches in the world can’t mask the darkness that lies beneath the gilded surface, embodied in the charismatic but dangerous Kaspar Varn.

Violet and Kaspar surrender to a passion that transcends their separate worlds – but it’s a passion that comes at a price...

MY THOUGHTS
The Dark Heroine lives up to the adjective in its title, introducing us to a world where vampires are not the romantic heroes of recent fiction, but rather anti-heroes seemingly unconcerned with winning our affections in favor of unapologetically making us see who they truly are. Thus our relationship with Kaspar, his family, and his world is a fragile and unsettling one, often pushing the boundaries of our tolerance and challenging our capacity to forgive at every opportunity, but even as our hearts and minds struggle with what they can and cannot accept we find ourselves deeply intrigued. Ms. Gibbs is without a doubt a talented storyteller, impressing us with her ability to create such morally and romantically ambiguous characters and delighting us with her talent for making a 500+ page tale feel as though it's over in the blink of an eye.

Though this story alternates between Kaspar and Violet's point of views, it's Violet with whom we spend the most time, but despite our extended access to the inner workings of her mind, she remains a young woman we can't quite figure out. There are some behavioral inconsistencies for all the characters across the board, but given our ample time with Violet hers are the most pronounced for us, her thoughts and actions completely unpredictable in a way that keeps us at arms length as we fight to get a handle on who she is. While she deals with many of the difficult situations admirably given her young age, there are times when she either underreacts to situations we feel bear more of an emotional response from her, or overreacts to things we don't anticipate given her behavior up to that point. As a result, our relationship with her feels tenuous; a fragile string connecting us that's stretched unnervingly tight every time she reacts somewhat erratically, keeping us anxious that it will break without notice and leave us with nothing.

Kaspar is as much a puzzle to us as Violet is, his behavior throughout like a test Ms. Gibbs is administering to us readers to see who will stick with him long enough for his layers to be peeled back. He is generally unlikable from the very beginning and for much of the first hundred or so pages, making us think he's going to need every one of the remaining four hundred to reverse our current opinion, but the saving grace for us is Violet herself. She shares our instant dislike of him and all he represents, so we're able to find some comfort in the fact that she's not a girl pining for and mooning over a boy who treats her poorly. Ms. Gibbs does a beautiful job of slowly endearing Kaspar to us, though each moment of vulnerability is often accompanied by a reminder of how brutal he can be, and in the end he's someone who holds us transfixed even if a handful of niggling doubts about him remain.

A few of those doubts we have with regard to Kaspar are a result of questions we have about this world of vampires itself, some of the rules that govern their society and their method of feeding not entirely clear and thus coloring our perception of the characters themselves. For instance, Kaspar eventually reveals that they don't have to kill to feed (it's also made clear that they can feed on animals, bagged blood, or even other vampires), but they often do commit murder in the name of survival, leaving us to wonder how deep the pleasure of the kill is ingrained in them and even more so, how we feel about that given one such killer is our romantic lead. Overall though, this tale is quite entertaining, our issues with it actually a sign of our deep interest given they keep us thinking of Violet and Kaspar long after we finish reading, and Ms. Gibbs is certainly an author to watch for me moving forward.

Rating: 3.5-4 out of 5 (I'm giving a range because there are some days where the inconsistencies in the characters' behavior bothered me more than they did on others, but all in all, I'm excited to see what's to come in book two.)

Guest Post: Sophia Bennett + The Look

Today is an exciting day because it marks the US release of Sophia Bennett's young adult novel The Look, and she's dropping by the blog to share an exclusive excerpt. Win. It also happens to be my birthday. Also a win. I'm thrilled to have the chance to celebrate with Sophia, and I'm going to hand the reins of Supernatural Snark over to her now to introduce the snippet!

• • • • • • • • • •

When I wrote the first draft of The Look, Tina di Gaggia didn’t exist. Then I decided I needed a fashion character with a bit of bite, and she just … appeared. A little bit Tyra Banks, a little bit André Leon Talley, a little bit Cruella de Vil, she was such fun to write and even though she’s very slightly er, evil, I would love to be her for just one day.

In this scene, Ted has just been almost run over by a bus while out visiting art galleries in London. She also lost her dad’s hat, which she was wearing to cover her recently shaved head. She’s recovering from the experience when she finds herself in the middle of a crowd of eccentric-looking people, all heading in the same direction. Dazed, she follows them, and finds herself at the entrance to Somerset House, where they hold London Fashion Week.

I lean against a pillar and remember the rush of wind when that bus passed me. I never did say thank you to that man in the suit. I wonder why he stared at me like that.

And then I notice someone else staring. A little woman, just a few feet away. She’s the most extraordinary sight, but she’s looking at me as if I’m the strange vision.

“JEANS E-BERK,” she says loudly as soon as she catches my eye.

Is she talking to me? Is she trying to sell me jeggings? Is she deranged? Looking at her, it wouldn’t be too surprising.

She is wearing a calf-length dress made out of leather patches held together with orange zippers, a gold silk Puffa jacket, a skull-print scarf so famous that even I now know it’s by Alexander McQueen, and boots with four-inch metallic gold platforms heels.

“Please tell me you’re a model,” she drawls in an exotic, American-type accent that I can’t place.

“Er, well, I suppose I used to be,” I say. I’m not sure I should be talking to escaped psychiatric patients in the middle of the street, but her eyes are holding me in a hypnotic grip.

“Thank God. Of course you are. Jeans E-Berk. Do you know her?”

“Personally?”

“Oh sweet mercy! Of course not personally. She was an actress. In the sixties. Á Bout de Souffle. Breathless to you. Jean Seberg!”

“Oh! Jean Seberg!”

“Ah! So you know her?”

“Not really.”

She sighs, very, very deeply. “This is going to take a long time. You don’t have a show, do you?”

“What, here? No. I don’t even have a pass.”

Her eyes widen. “Perfect!”

She puts a firm hand on my elbow and guides me into the doorway of a gatehouse to one side of the archway. It’s quieter here. She seems slightly less crazy now.

“Delicate face. Killer hair. Jean’s who you remind me of right now, but there are so many others. Sinéad, Aggy. Of course, Aggy . . . But you’re unique. And so young. What are you? Fifteen — nearly sixteen? How long have you had your hair like that?”

She got my age right to the month, practically. Nobody does that.

“Er, about two weeks,” I admit. “Except it wasn’t this long before.”

Oh sweet mercy indeed. I’m explaining the obvious about hair growth to some French-movie-obsessed, age-guessing weirdo. Why? Shut up, Ted. I wish Ava were here.

It’s only at this point that I fully realize what the woman’s looking at. I’ve been so busy thinking about the bus and the fedora, then being accosted by a lunatic, that I’d forgotten how I must look now that the hat’s not there. My hair is still less than a centimeter long. I must seem a bit . . . freaky.

“You’re incredible,” the woman says. “Who are you signed with?”

“Model City,” I say, “but —”

“Ah! Cassandra! How is she? We haven’t spoken in a while. She must be ENCHANTED with you. What have you done?” She looks at me accusingly.

“Er . . . nothing?”

“Nothing? No shoots? No campaigns?”

Oh! That kind of “what have you done?” Not the kind Dad gets from Mum when the answer is “I didn’t mean to, and anyway I can fix it.”

“No,” I answer. “I tried, but it didn’t work out. Then I got my head shaved and school started, so —”

“Wait! Does Cassandra know about this? Did you tell her?”

I shrug.

“My GOD! I’m a GENIUS! I’ve got you all to myself, you DARLING! Don’t tell anyone. Don’t say a word. I’m going to tell them. No, I’m going to show them. Stand there. Not there — in the light. There!”

She shoves me around until she’s got some daylight on my face, whips out the fanciest phone I’ve seen in my life, and takes a couple of headshots of me. I know by now not to try and pose. This is one of those “just stand there” moments. Plus, I don’t really have any idea what’s going on.

When she’s done, she shoves her phone back in her bag, which is a vast, leather, studded affair, and holds out her hand.

“Tina di Gaggia. I make the next trends happen and, baby, YOU are the next trend. What are you doing right now?”

“Er, going home.”

“Are they expecting you? Is it urgent?”

“Not exactly, but —”

“Have you ever seen a catwalk show?”

• • • • • • • • • • 

THE LOOK

Can she be a supermodel and a super-sister? She finds her answer in just one look.

Two sisters, both beautiful in different ways: Fifteen-year-old Ted has got "The Look." That's what the scout for the modeling agency tells her, and she can't believe her luck. But just as Ted's jet-setting off on her new career, Ava is diagnosed with cancer. Can Ted be a supermodel and a super-sister? Or will she have to choose between family and fame? With their worlds turned upside down, the girls have to look past appearances, look deep inside, to figure out what really matters

Amazon • Barnes and Noble • IndieBound