Masque of the Red Death Event Annoucement

I may have gushed and squealed about this novel quite a bit. It's for a good read though - this novel is simply fantastic. So fantastic I am dedicating the entire week to promoting it.

Here is what you can expect

April 23 - Interview with Bethany Griffin

April 24 - My review of Masque of the Red Death

April 25 - Giveway Details!

April 26 - Will & Elliott: The Men of Masque

April 27 - My Masque Playlist

April 28 - What to Expect in Book 2: Using Poe's story to find clues

April 29 - My very gushy letter to Bethany

Hope you will follow along. I have some great goodies up for grabs including a copy of the book, amazing bookmarks, and leather bracelets!

The Selection by Kiera Cass

The Selection by Kiera Cass

Release Date –  April 24, 2012

Publisher Website –  Harper Collins

Publisher Social Media - Twitter/Facebook/SavvyReader

Pages - 327 pages

My Rating- 4/5

**obtained from the publisher for an honest review**

Here is the Goodreads synopsis

For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in the palace and compete for the heart of the gorgeous Prince Maxon.

But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn't want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.

Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she's made for herself- and realizes that the life she's always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

The first thing you’ll notice about The Selection is it’s oh so pretty cover. It really is one of the more beautiful covers of 2012 and I am sure it’s going to draw a lot of people in.

The best way to describe this novel is fun. It’s been touted as Cinderella meets The Bachelor and that’s not far off. It’s filled with pretty gowns, catty girl drama, and sweet romance. It’s the perfect fit if you’re looking for this kind of novel. 

I surprised myself with how quickly I become engrossed in this novel. I wasn’t expecting it, and honestly, I can see how it may not be the book for everyone. It has a specific genre and appeal but it’s clearly stated.

The writing style reflects the tone of the novel. Light, airy and it will keep you turning the pages. Kiera Cass packs a lot of start up plot details into the novel that will set up the sequels. There is the hint of them being taken in some (hopefully) intriguing directions. 

This has been called a dystopian. Not sure I agree and I think it may set some expectations on this novel that will cause people to end up not enjoying it. The only dystopian aspect is a caste system based on numbers with the higher number reflecting a higher status. It reads more like a fairytale than anything else. 

The character of America did infuriate me at times. She couldn’t make a decision at all. I did like that she finally decides to make herself happy and realizes that she may need time to figure some things about before she can fully commit to what that is.  There are times she shows herself as being smart and inquisitive and I hope her character continues to change and grow. Her realization that the life she always wanted may not be the life she ends up with rings true to her journey, as does her realization that she may be ok with this. I did like that she treated everyone the same, regardless of their class. 

Maxon is adorable. Patient, kind, a little awkward and seemingly very genuine. He made me enjoy the book so much more. He is under a lot of pressure, not just from the task of choosing a bride, but the rebel attacks that seem to be escalating. He’s got a lot of responsibility and just wants to make his parents and his country proud. It’s hard not to like him. 

Aspen is equally likeable. He cares about America a lot, but understands their situation. I may end up liking him more in book two if we get to know him more, but the connection isn’t there yet.

The romances in the book are very different. Aspen and America come from different caste levels in society and therefore have a forbidden romance of sorts. Their romance is filled with sneaked kissing, passion, longing and a hope for the future. Maxon and America, on the other hand, begin as friends. America has no desire to compete at first but quickly realizes that Maxon isn’t so bad and they start to build something that could be real. I liked the Maxon/American pairing so much more because you can see the trust, and genuine feelings being built. It’s not instant, not even instant attraction. They each break down barriers and misconceptions for each other. Aspen and America’s relationship comes pre-developed and I didn’t feel the spark as much as I did with Maxon. 

There are teases of unrest, rebels, and a larger political agenda storyline that I hope plays a larger part to the sequels in the series. The depth the story needs is added with this storyline. America proves herself quite perceptive  in these situations and as a result she is beginning to ask questions, think logically and has a desire to find out more. The secrets being kept from numerous people will hopefully come to light and could change everything.

This will be one of those titles that people will either really enjoy or dislike. I think a lot of it will come down to expectations the reader has going in. For me The Selection was a fun, romantic, sweet read that I’ll compare to eating a delicious treat. You’ll enjoy it, and immediately look for the another. 

Fallen Angel by Heather Terrell

Fallen Angel by Heather Terrell
Release Date –  December 28 2010
Publisher Website –  Harper Collins
Publisher Social Media - Twitter/Facebook/SavvyReader
Pages -  310 pages
My Rating- 2.5/5
**obtained from the library**

**************MILD SPOILERS******************

Here is the Goodreads synopsis

Terrell delivers the first book in a dark, edgy new angel series about a girl drawn into an ancient conflict that threatens everything she knows, even the life of the boy she loves.

Fallen Angel offers an interesting perspective on angel mythology, however the characters were hard for me to relate to.

Ellie and Michael are the main characters in the story. Two teenagers who begin to suspect that they may be something more than human. I feel we did not get to know the characters that well. I could barely picture them, and I wish they had been developed more. This made for a disconnect that was prevalent throughout the entire book.

I really liked that Ellie and Michael are both equal. They both are going through the same thing, and they are both supernatural. Too often we read of the supernatural being in love with the human (or vice versa) so it was nice to see it from a perspective that we don’t often get to see. It made the relationship seem more natural, even though it happens very quickly.  The relationship is intense, passionate and consuming for both of them, and as with most YA novels there is an underlying element to the attraction.

The relationship between Ellie and her best friend Ruth seemed a little awkward and strange at times. Ruth was overly dependant on Ellie, scarily so. It could have been a interesting development to dive deeper in the psychological reasons behind Ruth’s behaviour, but it wasn’t fully dealt with or explained.

Fallen Angel has an really intriguing premise. The synopsis doesn’t give much away, but as I reading I could see the mythology the author wanted to incorporate. I though the Book of Enoch was a great touch, and wished that would have been explored more. The novel has a lot of vampire references and qualities.  Blood is a huge plot point, and the characters actually think they are vampires at first. Applying this mythology could have been very intriguing and unique, but in a way I felt the author really wanted to write about vampires. A large part of the book is Ellie and Michael trying to determine what they are and I feel the title gives it away to the reader. This made me less invested because I knew the end result.

While the promise of an interesting premise, and good mythology was there, I was hoping to dive deeper into the story. It left me vaguely wishing the novel focused on the angel aspect more. I do think the second book maybe stronger, and that a younger teen would enjoy this novel a lot more.

Cynthia Hand Guest Post

Stopping by today for the Angel Event is Cynthia Hand, author of Unearthly and it's sequel Hallowed. Cynthia has provided a guest post about why she wrote about angels. It's fascinating to see what drew an author to a particular subject!

Thank you Cynthia for taking part in this event.

 Why did I choose to write about angels? This is a question I get a lot these days, and I always feel a little funny answering it, because the truth is, there was never a clear, definitive moment where I said to myself, “you know what? I’m going to write about angels!” It just sort of came about organically.

The seed that became Unearthly was always Clara—I clearly started to hear the voice of this character, this girl who knew that it was her destiny to save a boy who she kept seeing in visions. (For the record, usually in life it’s not a good sign when you’re hearing voices, but as a writer that’s how it usually first comes to me, a voice that wants to tell a story. Call me crazy, but I can accept that kind of craziness. It’s worked out pretty well for me so far. ) So I started to hear Clara’s voice, and she began to tell me about this mission that she was on. Then I lit on this fantastic image of a forest fire, and once I had that, the story began to unroll itself. With the forest fire came the setting of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and with the setting came the character of Tucker, this other, more rough-and-tumble boy who captures Clara’s attention and complicates everything beautifully. So suddenly I had the who, the what, the where, and the when.

Now all I had left to do was think of the why. And write about the how.

The why led me to angels. First off, I knew that I wanted Clara to be special; I wanted her to be a modern-day, bona fide hero. But I also knew I wanted her to be human. I didn’t want her to be a vampire or a fairy or any other kind of wholly supernatural creature—even though I love reading those books; don’t get me wrong. I wanted her to have some unique problems, sure, but I also wanted her to have very normal, human problems. I wanted her to be a high school girl who gets completely tongue-tied around the boy she likes.

I kept mulling over the word “hero,” and then, in one of those freakish writerly flashes of inspiration, I remembered this one obscure little passage in the Bible that talked about heroes—the Nephilim, the offspring of angels and humans.

I’d been interested in the Nephilim since I was a little girl and read Madeleine L’Engle’s book Many Waters, in which the main characters travel back to the time of Noah where there are angels walking around on earth, and some of the angels have children by human women. This idea always fascinated me—what would it be like, I wondered, to know that you’re part angel, the blood of the divine running through your veins? It would be crazy, right? Maybe it would be cool, maybe you’d have all these neat powers, but it might also be a lot of pressure!

As soon as I hit on the Nephilim idea, I knew that’s what Clara was, and all the other pieces of my story tumbled right into place. Then I had loads of fun coming up with the rules and mythology of the new world I was creating. That’s where some of the real joy of writing comes from—it’s just wildly fun to invent all these cool things and see them play themselves out on the page. I also kind of fell in love with how the story immediately began to operate on two levels, the surface level where Clara faces all her real-life challenges, and another deeper, spiritual level where she is forced to confront all of the big questions of life, the “why am I here?” questions.

That’s the tricky thing about writing about angels—they are, at heart, a topic steeped in religious connotation. I never wanted to write a book that advocated any one religion or set of religious beliefs, but I also didn’t want to ignore the spiritual implications of the story. I did a lot of research on angels and their history, which was incredibly interesting stuff, but I also gave myself permission to take the pieces of information that lit up my imagination and leave the rest—to create a world that was fully Clara’s own. So in the end, I just wrote what happened to this particular girl and tried to make the situation as real as possible: if you found out you were part-angel, how would you feel about life? About the idea of God? About your duty to that God? About your place in the world?

Angel Eyes by Shannon Dittemore

Angel Eyes by Shannon Dittemore
Release Date –  May 29, 2012
Publisher Website –  Thomas Nelson Fiction
Publisher Social Media - Twitter
Pages -   320 pages
My Rating- 3/5
**obtained publisher for an honest review**

Here is the Goodreads synopsis

Once you’ve seen, you can’t unsee. Everything changes when you’ve looked at the world through . . . 

ANGEL EYES 

Brielle’s a ballerina who went to the city to chase her dreams and found tragedy instead. She’s come home to shabby little Stratus, Oregon, to live with her grief and her guilt . . . and the incredible, numbing cold she can’t seem to shake. 

Jake’s the new guy at school. The boy next door with burning hands and an unbelievable gift that targets him for corruption. 

Something more than fate has brought them together. An evil bigger than both of them lurks in the shadows nearby, hiding in plain sight. Two angels stand guard, unsure what’s going to happen. And a beauty brighter than Jake or Brielle has ever seen is calling them to join the battle in a realm where all human choices start. 

A realm that only angels and demons—and Brielle—can perceive.

Angel Eyes, for me, was one of those novels that I ended up not having a particularly strong feeling about upon completion. It was what I liked to call a “middle” book. It’s one of those books that had some great aspects to it, but I couldn’t relate to the characters as much as I wanted to.

The writing was something that actually stood out. Shannon’s writing really shined during the “Celestial” parts of the novel. Celestial refers to the angel realm that humans can not see.  Her talent and the world she created was more evident in these sections. The author put just enough of her own spin on the  angel mythology to keep it fresh. The halo from the cover is an important part of the story and I enjoyed learning about it,  and it’s power. It was unique as I had not read an angel novel that dealt with halos prior to this one. The way the author made it apart of this story was interesting.

The characters were all fairly likeable. Brielle is a broken girl who has been through a lot when we first meet her. She feels she is responsible for something horrible that happened and moves back home to escape. I was really invested in this part of the story. The mystery of finding out what event had broken Brielle to the point she’s at when we meet her. Brielle slowly comes to terms with what happened and becomes stronger during the coarse of the novel.  Jake, the boy next door and love interest, is sweet and kind. I wish we would have gotten to know more about him. Hopefully that will happen in future novels in the series.

Brielle’s capability of seeing the angel realm changes her life and her acceptance of it happens quickly. I felt this made sense, as she has proof of the existence. It is not like she could ignore what she is seeing. It was great to bypass the entire acceptance part of it and instead of Brielle struggle with the impact it was going to have on her. What did she do with this new knowledge? What does it mean for her future? And most of all how would it impact her beliefs? These questions play a big part in the overall plot of the story and shape Brielle’s character.

This book may not appeal to everyone has it does have a large religious component to it. It’s one of the more “religious” angel novels I have read. You can tell the author’s faith is important to her and it is reflected in her writing. The novel’s themes of acceptance of faith, belief, and questioning why bad things happen are all important to the plot of the story and link into the religious nature of the story.

The ending left me curious about where the author will take this story in future instalments. While this book may not be for everyone, and I myself didn’t feel strongly one way or another about it upon finishing, the writing and mythology certainly make this author one I would read again.

Interview with Shannon Dittemore

Today I have Shannon Dittemore, author of the upcoming novel Angel Eyes stopping by for an Q and A. If you want to learn more you can view the Goodreads page, follow Shannon on Twitter or visit her website. Angel Eyes will release on May 29. Thank you for stopping by Shannon!

Describe Angel Eyes in three words

You can't unsee.

Cheating, right? I stole that from the book jacket, but it's a great summary of what's going on in Brielle's world. She sees things she can't unsee, learns things she can't unknow, and that's... well, that's a problem for her.

How would you describe Brielle?

Cold. Scared. Guilty. When we meet Brielle, she's just suffered a major loss and feels she could have prevented it. Now, if I were to describe Brielle at the end of the story, I'd use very different adjectives.

How would Brielle describe Jake?

"He's a stalker who has no business being gorgeous. And he's hot... I mean his hands, his hands are hot. Sheesh."

What would you say is the most unique aspect of your angel mythology?

I'm going out a limb a bit here because I've kept myself fairly sheltered from other angel books. Not because I dislike them, but because I'm still working on this trilogy and I've needed to keep my own world--and its rules--clear in my mind.

But, from what I have read, I'd say there are probably three things that set Angel Eyes apart. First of all, there isn't a single reference to the Nephilim in my books. The idea of angels marrying the "daughters of men" is not discussed as a reality or a back-story. I went another direction entirely and I hope readers will find the journey compelling.

Second, my source material, in nearly every way, was the Bible. I took liberties of course, creating my own characters with their own stories. But, I grew up fascinated by the angels of scripture and I've wondered what it'd be like to see them. What would it be like to talk to them, to understand their task here on earth. And wh+ile my stories are contemporary, I wanted my angels to be believable theologically. So believable that they could fly back into the pages of that big coffee-table Bible Grandma always had out. I don't know if I've quite accomplished that, but I hope I'm close.

Oh. And there's a halo. Yup, a halo. *zips lips*

What sort of research did you do for this book?

Well! I work with teenagers and young adults, and I have for years. Being a dedicated people watcher certainly helps. I also did some reading on the tragedy of child trafficking, which plays a bit part in this story. I do hope to learn more about this very real, very unsettling issue and I'd love to see young people doing what they can to fight it. And of course, the Bible and I are good friends. If you're a writer, it's impossible to get away from the phrase "write what you know," and I did my best to do just that.

Jessica Shirvington - Guest Post - Embrace Blog Tour

Today I am part of the ongoing blog tour for Jessica Shirvington's Embrace. I have Jessica stopping by with a guest post about her novel and setting.

If you haven't read this wonderful novel and would like a chance to make sure to stop by and enter the giveaway I am hosting.

You can learn more about Embrace over at Goodreads, follow Jessica on Twitter and visit the author website. Thank you Jessica for stopping by again during the angel event!

Where Are You From?

By Jessica Shirvington

In my first draft of EMBRACE (there were eight!), I didn’t set the city. I was in two minds the entire time. I suppose I was drawing on all the places I have been around the world. Although I now live in Sydney, when I started to write EMBRACE, my family and I had just moved back from six years living in London. And prior to that, I’d spent quite a lot of time travelling to many cities around the world – so much so, that when I was writing scenes in EMBRACE, I found myself thinking of different cities around the world and never being able to truly decided which one most suited Violet’s world.

In my second and third and fourth drafts, I chose different cities (I’ll never tell) from around the world and set Violet’s story there. But each time, it felt forced.

I wanted her to live in a city, as opposed to some small town where all these major apocalyptic events just miraculously found her. To be believable she had to be in a metropolitan environment, but which one?

In the end, the answer was … any of them, and none of them. It wasn’t that the cities I chose didn’t work; it was that in my mind I’d amalgamated them into what I needed for her story to work for me. So I made the decision to give that option to all of my readers and simply called her city, the City.

It isn’t the ‘done thing’ usually, but I believe for this story, it works. I want readers to be able to put this story where they know. If they live in a city, it can be there, if they live in a rural area, then it isn’t a stretch for them to imagine a city nearby. It is an element of control that I wanted to give to the reader.

That said, I like a little control myself … and I discovered that by giving this open setting for Violet’s hometown, it also opened up the possibility to use other locations around the world that would really pop off the page.

In ENTICED (the sequel, out in September!), Violet and her friends find themselves travelling to Jordan – on a quest to the place of Moses’ death – Mount Nebo. In EMBLAZE (book 3, out March 2013) they travel to the island of Santorini in Greece, which is small and stunning, and holds terrors that none of them are prepared for.

Each book I take the characters somewhere new and as I write the series, I have discovered how very important this is to me. I want my characters to go to the world, to find the problems and be part of the solution, rather than the fight always, and too conveniently, finding them.