True Crime Week - Jenni L Walsh Guest Post

True Crime Week continues with a guest post from Jenni L Walsh. Her novel, Becoming Bonnie, is inspired by the infamous Bonnie and Clyde. It's a must read for fans of novels inspired by true crime and offers up a grounded, humanizing look at the women who would become one half of the most infamous crime duo in history.

It also happens that Becoming Bonnie is on sale. It is currently on sale at many ebook retails for $2.99! That's less than your daily coffee order, and such a steal for this amazing book. You can read the first half of Bonnie's story before the companion novel, Side by Side, released on June 5th.

Limited Time! #BecomingBonnie—story of Bonnie before Clyde—is $2.99

"Rollicking narrative will have readers rooting for Bonnelyn-turned-Bonnie every (dance) step of the way."-Shelf Awareness

Amazon https://t.co/oAK9Ia7A9F
BN https://t.co/WsmS8fN2iK
Kobo https://t.co/T4FoxJVHee pic.twitter.com/JqZ834IOni

— Jenni L. Walsh (@jennilwalsh) March 21, 2018

The sale ends April 16th! Be sure to snag your copy from your favourite ebook retailer and have an amazing beach read for the upcoming summer season!

Amazon // Barnes and Noble // Kobo

Jenni is also offering up a special pre-order incentive for Side By Side. If you pre-order and follow the instructions on her website you can get a package of goodies that includes temporary tattoos, bookmarks and  a signed book plate.

Amazing right? I definitely need to submit my own pre-order to snag these goodies. However, there is also the chance to win an amazing prize pack when you submit your pre-order. One lucky winner will receive  a tee shirt, Bonnie and Clyde wine glasses, custom Bonnie and Clyde magnetic bookmarks , and an amazing mug. 

I am personally keeping my fingers crossed that I get selected for this amazing prize pack. Those wine glasses are amazing. I love them!

Be sure to pre-order your copy from the retailer of your choice and take advantage of this incentive!

Amazon // Chapters // Barnes and Noble 

Jenni was kind enough to share a guest post with me about the allure of Bonnie and Clyde that exists even after all of these years. It's a fantastic read and I am so thrilled to be sharing it with you. A huge thank you to Jenni for taking the time to write it. 

Bonnie and Clyde: America’s Outlaws

Often when thinking about criminals or outlaws, Bonnie and Clyde come to mind. While the duo found themselves in various headlines throughout their twenty-seven month crime spree, it wasn’t until their deaths in May of 1934 that “Bonnie and Clyde” became fixtures in American history.

To this day, Bonnie and Clyde remain polarizing figures, their names frequently in the media. The phrase “modern-day Bonnie and Clyde” is often given to male/female criminal partnerships, especially when the couple is romantic. Two capybaras—quickly given the names Bonnie and Clyde—made headlines after the rodents escaped a Canadian zoo. Like it or not, Bonnie and Clyde are infamous.

I asked a group of individuals what the names “Bonnie and Clyde” were synonymous with for them. As expected, their answers varied.

Some reiterated history’s portrayal: criminal duo, bank robbers, gangsters, outlaws, doomed lovers.

Others attributed nouns, such as guns, death, dangerous, violence.

A few individuals responded with how Bonnie and Clyde exhibited sociopathic or psychotic behaviors and how their relationship was toxic. This answer didn’t come as a surprise; hybristophilia—when a female is attracted to a person who has committed an outrage or a gruesome crime—is called the “Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome.”

Adversely, a responder said, “I’ve always wondered what the love connection must’ve felt like between them… Bonnie entered a life of crime because she loved him so fiercely.” Another said, “I think of their close relationship first.” A third said, “dangerously in love.” These responders are not alone in their reactions. A quick scan of #BonnieandClyde on Twitter is littered with phrases of solidarity between couples, such as “I got your back gurl” and “partner in crime.” Sometimes the hashtag is accompanied by additional sentiments like #MyBestFriend #LoveHim

I’ll admit my own interest in Bonnie and Clyde was originally sparked by their loyalty and devotion to one another. I had been brainstorming a historical topic for my novel, when “Bonnie and Clyde” surfaced. I had seen the film, but over a decade prior, and it was their partnership I recalled the strongest in that moment. Curiosity filled me and I began to dig into their story. Bonnie was a church-going, straight-A girl with big dreams for herself. Clyde made multiple attempts at an honest life, before turning to violence. These interesting tidbits strengthened my desire to understand who they were at the core. So I set out to tell their tale, in Bonnie Parker’s voice, beginning before she ever met Clyde Barrow, before their crime spree, before any victims.

In my novel, Becoming Bonnie, I gave her a fictional name—Bonnelyn—and sought to show her evolution from a wholesome young woman to a gun-wielding gal—Bonnie—who was willing to risk it all for a fella named Clyde. In the companion novel, Side by Side, releasing on June 5, 2018, I explore their ultimate fate: death, danger, and violence. Ultimately, there’s much more than expected behind the infamous Bonnie and Clyde.

Begin Bonnie’s story with Becoming Bonnie, which is on sale for $2.99 until April 16th!

Blog Tour - All The Feels by Danika Stone

I am thrilled to be part of the blog tour for a book that I am sure all book nerd are going to love. Danika Stone's ALL THE FEELS is a must read for anyone who has ever been part of a fandom and I am so excited to be able to share a fantastic guest post from her today along with an AMAZING giveway.

Here is Danika's guest post on the different kinds of relationships within All The Feels.

Not (Just) Friends

I have an admission: I hate romantic tropes in YA. Wait, wait! Before you yell at me, I want to explain. It’s not that those tried and true plots are bad. They aren’t. But—if you’ve read enough of them—they can feel contrived.

When I wrote All the Feels, I wanted a story that went beyond the brooding YA hero trope into a realistic story of friends and falling in love. I wanted Liv and Xander to be my end game, but I also wanted the story of their friendship to stand on its own.

All the Feels follows the ups and downs of friendship rather than just finding ‘the one’. In writing it, I explored the various facets of interactions, for both same-sex and opposite-sex characters. Here are some of my favorite non-romantic relationships in the book.

1. Liv and her mother: Mother-Daughter Friendship. One of the nicest parts of writing All the Feels was finding the right voice for Liv’s mother. She has a genuine love for her daughter, and Liv for her. Even though they don’t always see eye to eye, they still support one another throughout the ups and downs of life.

2. Liv and Hank: Crush/Friendship. The one-sided attraction of a crush is something that every reader will be able to identify with. In All the Feels, Liv’s attraction to Hank, and his complete obliviousness to her burgeoning feelings, is cringe-worthy, but definitely true to life.

3. Liv and Arden: Acquaintance Friendship. One of the pricklier relationships in the book is Liv’s interaction with Xander’s girlfriend, Arden. There’s a hint of jealousy in Liv, even though Arden’s efforts to help her are genuine. That sort of female competitiveness is something many young women will recognize. Arden supports Liv despite the difficulties they have.

4. Liv and Xander: Best Friends. Liv and Xander’s friendship shifts throughout the book, but one part element the same, their complete devotion to one another. Xander never balks at helping Liv and she provides him with the same support. The tone of their relationship is malleable, but their core love for one another—as friends—never wavers. And that’s even before the romance begins!

 

In the end, writing a realistic experience of friendship is more important to me than giving readers an unrealistic perception of the perfect person waiting to sweep you off your feet. Because who in the end is more perfect than a friend who totally gets you?

A huge thank you to Danika for taking the time to stop by the blog and for writing a fun post that offers a glimpse into the writing of the book and the characters within it. I can attest that ALL THE FEELS does a wonderful job at portraying these different types of relationships within it's pages. It is a feel good book and one that I truly believe everyone will finish with a smile on their face.

Danika and Raincoast Books have kindly offered up a prize pack for each stop of this tour. It's filled with AMAZING goodies that fit the book perfectly. 

I need a 'Just Ship It' button so much! How cute are those paper dolls?! The prize also contains your very own copy of All The Feels so you can experience this delightful read for yourself.

To win you simply need to fill out the Rafflecopter form below. The contest is open to CANADIAN residents only.

Be sure to add All The Feels to your Goodreads account, and follow Danika on Twitter.

You can purchase All The Feels at the following retails

Amazon // Chapters // Kobo

Stop by the blog on Thursday when I share my review of All The Feels! In the meantime be sure to enter the giveaway below and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Brianna Shrum's NEVER NEVER Dream Cast

If you read my review of Brianna Shrum's NEVER NEVER you know that I enjoyed this dark twist on the Peter Pan tale. Today, I am very excited to get to share with you Brianna's dream cast list! Lots of interesting choices (and her James Hook selection is pure perfection).

Here is a little about NEVER NEVER before we get to the dream casting!

Title: Never Never
Author: Brianna Shrum
Release Date: September 22, 2015
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Synopsis: James Hook is a child who only wants to grow up.
When he meets Peter Pan, a boy who loves to pretend and is intent on never becoming a man, James decides he could try being a child—at least briefly. James joins Peter Pan on a holiday to Neverland, a place of adventure created by children’s dreams, but Neverland is not for the faint of heart. Soon James finds himself longing for home, determined that he is destined to be a man. But Peter refuses to take him back, leaving James trapped in a world just beyond the one he loves. A world where children are to never grow up.
But grow up he does.                     
And thus begins the epic adventure of a Lost Boy and a Pirate.
This story isn’t about Peter Pan; it’s about the boy whose life he stole. It’s about a man in a world that hates men. It’s about the feared Captain James Hook and his passionate quest to kill the Pan, an impossible feat in a magical land where everyone loves Peter Pan.
Except one.

Be sure to check out my review and add it to your Goodreads as well! It's a must read for Peter Pan fans!

COME ON, PINTEREST. This is what we’ve been TRAINING FOR!

PETER PAN

So the fact that I’m going with Jack Gleeson, -aka- Joffrey Baratheon, possibly the most hated character in TV history….like ALL of TV history should give you some indication as to how I feel about Peter. ;D But this is always how I picture him: innocent-looking, a beautiful boy really, but sinisterrrrrr.

TIGER LILY

For real. Could Q’orianka Kilcher actually BE any more gorgeous? (The answer is no. No she could not.) She just looks *exactly* the way I picture Tiger Lily to look in my head. Strong and beautiful and amazing. I found a picture of her and I couldn’t BELIEVE how perfect she was.

BILL JUKES

“…and Bill Jukes, every inch of him tattooed…” –J. M. Barrie

Hafthor Bjornsson could not BE more Bill Jukes if he tried. He’s this mountain of a man (snicker, snicker. Cause you know, he’s The Mountain on Game of Thrones. Snicker, snicker) and those tats! But, like, apart from when he’s crushing people’s face and stuff, in REAL life he actually seems kind of adorable and gentle. Which is totally Bill.

STARKEY

Starkey is James’ tough, weathered, no-nonsense right-hand man. I actually had such a specific picture in my mind for Starkey that I thought it would be impossible to dreamcast him. And thennnnn I saw Outlander, and Murtagh. And BOOM. Duncan Lacroix.

Annnnnnd…..*drum rollllll*

THE HONORABLE CAPTAIN JAMES HOOK

He has gone through several incarnations in my head. I flirted with the idea of Tom Hiddleston. Because HELLO.

And I considered Ian Somerhalder for a while. SMOLDER, SIR. YOU JUST SMOLDER ONNNN.

But right now, the James Hook in my head is Cillin Murphy. That growly, gorgeous accent, and his utter elegance, and he’s just so darn sexy. But in this understated way. AND THOSE CORNFLOWER BLUE EYES THOUGH. (I’ll just keep Cillian-ing forever if you let me so I should stop now.) CAPTAIN JAMES, BABY.

I CAN’T.

A huge thank you to Brianna Shrum for taking the time to share her dream cast with us. Now if you excuse me, I am going to go stare at Cillian Murphy photos. For research. 

You can purchase NEVER NEVER from your fave local bookstore or any of the following links

Amazon // Barnes and Noble // Book Depository // Indiebound // Kobo //

You can find out more about NEVER NEVER and Brianna herself by visiting her at these links

Website / Twitter / Facebook

Brianna Shrum lives in Colorado with her high-school-sweetheart-turned-husband, two boys, and two big, floppy hound dogs. She thinks chai tea is proof of magic in the world, and loves all things kissy, magical, and strange. She'd totally love to connect with you. You can find her saying ridiculous things on Twitter @briannashrum

Kim Liggett's 5 Sexiest and 5 Scariest Scenes

Blood and Salt comes out this week, and it's seriously sexy (and also seriously unsettling). Kim's called it a horromance which is pretty accurate. What better way to celebrate that than having author Kim Liggett share her top five sexiest (and her top five scariest) scenes from pop culture for a super fun top ten list?!

Before we get to the scary and sexy goodness, here is a little about Blood and Salt (goodreads)

Romeo and Juliet meets Children of the Corn in this one-of-a-kind romantic horror.
“When you fall in love, you will carve out your heart and throw it into the deepest ocean. You will be all in—blood and salt.”
These are the last words Ash Larkin hears before her mother returns to the spiritual commune she escaped long ago. But when Ash follows her to Quivira, Kansas, something sinister and ancient waits among the rustling cornstalks of this village lost to time.
Ash is plagued by memories of her ancestor, Katia, which harken back to the town’s history of unrequited love and murder, alchemy and immortality. Charming traditions soon give way to a string of gruesome deaths, and Ash feels drawn to Dane, a forbidden boy with secrets of his own.
As the community prepares for a ceremony five hundred years in the making, Ash must fight not only to save her mother, but herself—and discover the truth about Quivira before it’s too late. Before she’s all in—blood and salt.

First up are her top five sexiest scenes (because those are always more fun).

SEXIEST: 

1) Outlander

I've read all the books. It's difficult to choose just one moment, but when Jamie's guarding Claire's door at the inn-- that's pretty charged.

2) True Blood 

I loved the books. I loved the show. This entire series is like sex on a stick (Lafayette reference). 

My favorite moments are between Sookie and Bill in season one. When he comes into Merlott's and everyone's staring at the two of them. He says her name--- "Sookie". Goosebumps. 

3) Penny Dreadful

I'm so in love with this show. Dorian Gray in season one-- oh my lord. His scenes crackle. One of my favorites is when he first meets Vanessa Ives. The electricity is palpable. 

4) Atonement  

The library scene in Ian McEwan's book is flawless.

5) The Vampire Diaries

That scene when Damon and Elena kiss outside the no-tell motel. Ridiculously hot.

Agree with so many of these sexy scenes (particularly anything with Jamie and Claire!)

Now for the the horror part of Kim's top ten list....

SCARIEST: 

1) Rosemary's Baby

That bedroom scene is terrifying. It has that hallucinogenic quality that really gets under my skin. Is it real-- is it a dream? It's disturbing in the best/worst way.

2) Misery

I adored the book and the movie. Kathy Bates killed it. So chilling.  

3) The Lottery finale

A week doesn't go by that I don't think about this Shirley Jackson story.

4) The Others

The soundtrack alone will give you nightmares. This scene with the veil--spine-tingling.  

5) The Exorcist

This is the one movie I can't watch alone. 

Definitely some great choices! Some of these movies would be perfect to watch for Halloween!

You can find out more about Kim and her book by visiting her on Twitter, or stopping by her website.

If you want to purchase Blood and Salt you can do so at the following links (pre-order until release tomorrow)

Amazon // Barnes and Noble // Chapters // Book Depository

What's your fave sexy scene, or scary scene, from pop culture? Let Kim and I know in the comments!

Ten of the Most Badass Women in History

Today I have Eleanor Herman stopping by to discuss some of the most badass women in history in honour of her novel Legacy Of Kings. It's my honour to share this awesome post and I cannot wait for everyone to discover Legacy Of Kings. Be sure to follow Eleanor on Twitter while you wait and be in loop for all the excitement that is to come as the countdown gets even closer to it's release

Ten of the Most Badass Women in History

by Eleanor Herman

Revenge was best served hot by these sensuous, scheming woman who stopped at nothing to achieve their ambitions for absolute power or quench their burning thirst for revenge. This list is a spicy stew of warrior queens, greedy concubines and the hellish fury of women scorned.

1. Queen Olympias of Macedon (375-316 BC) : The Greek Cersei Lannister

Alexander the Great’s mother, Olympias, belonged to an orgiastic snake-worshipping cult and sacrificed puppies to Hekate, goddess of necromancy. She reportedly murdered household servants and slave girls who slept with her husband, King Philip of Macedon, and dropped his baby son with another wife on his head, rendering him an idiot for life. But when Philip married a seventh wife, a noble Macedonian woman called Eurydice, Olympias stormed off to her home country of Epirus in a royal snit, taking her son Alexander with her. Marinating in her own venom, she probably concocted the plot to assassinate her husband. After Philip’s murder, she thundered back to Macedon and killed both Eurydice and Eurydice’s baby son, Caranus, to ensure her own son, Alexander, became king.

When Alexander died at the height of his conquests, his younger brother Arrhideus became King Philip III. Olympias killed him and his wife and a hundred of their followers. Cassander, one of the generals angling to control Macedon, captured Olympias and ordered his men to stab her, but they refused to kill the mother of the idolized Alexander. Relatives of her many victims did the job for them, surrounding her and stoning her to death at the age of fifty-nine.

2. Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae (Sixth Century BC) and Her Special Cup

Unable to conquer a nomadic tribe called the Massegetae in what is now Ukraine, Persian King Cyrus the Great (576-530 BC) resorted to trickery, abandoning his camp with a rich supply of wine. The Massegetaen troops—who usually got wasted on fermented mares’ milk—went crazy with the wine and fell into a collective drunken stupor. Cyrus’s army attacked, killing or capturing everyone, including the son of Queen Tomyris, and offered to send him back if she would just give Persia everything she owned, including herself as one of his wives. 

Tomyris told him to give back her son and get out of her country or she would give him more blood than he could drink. Her son, meanwhile, managed to get out of his bonds and kill himself for shame.

After a ferocious battle in which the queen—riding at the head of her army—totally kicked Persian butt, Tomyris found Cyruss' body and hacked off the head. Then, holding the head by the hair, she told it, "I warned you that I would quench your thirst for blood, and so I shall,” and jammed it deep into a wineskin filled with human blood. She turned his skull into a goblet from which she drank wine, fermented mares’ milk, or whatever else she damn well pleased.

3. Empress Agrippina of Rome (15-59 AD): a Very Strong Swimmer 

Agrippina’s brother, the crazy emperor Caligula, forced her to sleep with him, and when she plotted against him, he exiled her to an island, decreeing she had to earn her keep by diving deep for sponges. He expected her to starve. But Agrippina was a strong swimmer who could hold her breath forever and actually earned a lot of money sponge diving. After her brother’s murder, she returned to Rome, married a super-rich old guy, and inherited his entire estate a few weeks later when he died after eating something disagreeable. She then married her uncle, Emperor Claudius, whom she poisoned with his favorite dish of mushrooms. 

To keep control over the empire after her son, Emperor Nero, came of age, she slept with him. Nero got so sick of his mother that he arranged for her to travel on a specially designed self-collapsing boat, but all that sponge diving had made her such an awesome swimmer she got to shore. Recuperating in a fisherman’s hut, she sent word to her son to thank the gods—she had survived a terrible accident. In response, Nero sent soldiers with long knives. “Stab me in the womb,” she said, pulling up her robe, “which harbored such a monster.”

4. Boadicca (ca. 26-60 AD): Bring Up the Bodies

When Rome invaded Queen Boadicca’s kingdom in what is now England, whipped the queen and raped her daughters, the warrior woman raised an army of 100,000, which she commanded from her chariot. She burned three Roman cities to the ground—including Londinium—and slaughtered some 80,000 people. Boudicca had the heads of Roman noblewomen impaled on spikes, and had their breasts cut off and sewn to their mouths, "to the accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets, and wanton behavior" in sacred places, according an ancient Roman historian. They smashed the Roman legions that tried to stop them.

But the Romans regrouped and forced Boudicca to fight them in a ravine where her far superior numbers—100,000 men against Rome’s 10,000—were useless as they couldn’t spread out. Rome won, and though Boudicca escaped she either committed suicide or died soon after of a broken heart. In London, people digging foundations for new buildings have found skulls of Boadicca’s victims as recently as 2013.

5. Empress Wu Zutian (624-705 AD): The Chinese Cersei Lannister 

At fourteen, Wu Zutian became a royal concubine in the harem of thirty-nine-year-old Emperor Taizong. When he died, his entire harem was forced into a convent with shaved heads, but Wu bounced back and seduced the new emperor, Gaozong, giving him three sons. She cut off the hands and feet of his wife, drowned her in a vat of wine, and then killed her. 

Wu married the emperor, who almost immediately ate something that disagreed with him and suffered a massive stroke that left him a vegetable. Wu became regent, efficiently running the world’s largest and richest empire. Her secret police force killed anyone who didn’t like her, which was a lot of people, reportedly including two sons, a niece, a sister, four grandchildren, two stepsons and sixteen of their male heirs, and 3,000 families. 

When her husband the royal kumquat died, she became regent for her youngest son before deposing him and claiming the throne for herself. She gleefully ordered the most chauvinistic scholars to write biographies of great Chinese women, and those that refused she buried alive. After half a century of badass queening it, she decided she had had enough, gave the one son she hadn’t killed the throne, and died in her bed a year later at the age of eighty-one. Probably smiling.

6. Marozia (890-937): The Pornacracy of Rome

At fifteen, the Roman noblewoman Marozia become the lover of forty-four-year-old Pope John X and gave birth to his son. When the papal throne became vacant in 914, she used a combination of wealth, threats, and her own personal allure to secure the election of her new lover, John, as Pope John X. For fourteen years she ran the show, making laws, deciding foreign policy, and collecting taxes. The bishop of Cremona called her a "shameless whore who exercised power on the Roman citizenry like a man," and called Rome’s government a “pornocracy.”

When her former lover the pope stopped obeying her orders, she had him arrested and smothered in prison. She chose the next two popes, who were too terrified to balk at her commands, and in 931 she appointed her twenty-one-year-old son with Pope Sergius as the new pontiff, John XI, who did everything Mama said. At her wedding to a third powerful warlord, her son from her first marriage arrested his mother before she even got to eat some wedding cake, while her gallant groom leaped out of a window and escaped. After five years in prison, Marozia died at the age of 47, whether from poison, illness, smothering, or bursting from sheer spite, we do not know.

7. Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204) : Crusading Amazon 

In 1148, the pious, dim-witted King Louis VII of France went on Crusade, and his wife Eleanor insisted on coming along so she could dress in battle garb as an ancient Amazon—complete with a silver-plated rocket bra—and gallop across the Hungarian Plains. In the Holy land, she had an affair with her uncle, Raymond of Antioch, and told her husband she was staying with Uncle Raymond and never going back to smelly, muddy France with a sissy husband ruled by filthy priests. Louis would gladly have left her there, but his ministers said it would be really bad PR so he had her dragged by force from her uncle’s palace and tied her kicking and screaming to a horse. 

Back home she finally got her marriage to Louis annulled. At the age of thirty, she married the studly, eighteen-year-old Henry Plantagenet, duke of Normandy, the future Henry II of England, and proceeded to give him eight children.

Theirs was a tempestuous marriage. Full of spit and vinegar, Eleanor reportedly killed Fair Rosamund, Henry’s favorite mistress, and she certainly sided with her sons when they rebelled against their father. Henry captured her as she galloped off dressed like a man, and locked her up in a tower for fifteen years. When her son Richard the Lionheart became king, he not only let her out of the tower but named her regent when he went off on Crusade. At the unheard-of age of eighty, Eleanor was still bouncing around Europe on diplomatic business. She died at age eighty-two.

8. Shajar al Durr, Sultana of Egypt (ca. 1220-1257): The Egyptian Cersei Lannister

Shajar was a beautiful slave girl bought at the market by Sultan Al Salih Sayub of Egypt, who not only freed her but married her. When French Crusaders attacked Egypt and the gravely ill Sultan died in his tent, Shajar concealed his death, had food brought to him and empty plates taken away, forged his signature on royal decrees, and even led the troops into battle herself, though some people may have wondered about that odd smell coming from the king’s tent. Disheartened, the French returned home. 

When her stepson, a drunken serial rapist, arrived in Cairo to become the new sultan, Shajar had him murdered and claimed the throne for herself.  But the caliph in Baghdad, who ran Egypt, made her general Aybak the sultan, saying women were unfit to rule. Shajar quickly convinced the general to divorce his wife and marry her so they could rule jointly.

The womanizing Aybak unwisely decided to marry again. Naturally, Shajar had him murdered in his bath. The dead sultan’s men arrested Shajar and put her in a tower. But the slave women of Aybak’s discarded first wife dragged her out, beat her to death with their wooden shoes, and threw her nude body off the battlements of Cairo. 

9. Queen Isabella of England (1295-1358), Whose Husband Gave Away Her Silver Cups 

When the French princess Isabella realized her husband, the handsome King Edward II of England, was giving away all her silver cups, jewels, and castles to his boyfriend, Piers Gaveston, she teamed up with angry barons, dragged Piers out of his castle, and chopped off his head. The king soon found himself another lover, Hugh Despenser the Younger, once again foolishly giving his boyfriend everybody’s castles and silver cups, including the queen’s. 

Isabella sailed to France, took a warlord lover, and returned to England with an army. They killed the new boyfriend and imprisoned the king, who died mysteriously soon after. Rumor had it that Isabella and her lover had a red hot poker placed inside a sawed-off cow horn and shoved in a place where the sun don’t shine so the royal body had no marks on it and looked like a natural death.

The two of them ran England until her son, Edward III, became worried that his mother’s lover might do something strange to him with a cow horn, too. At seventeen, he and his friends seized power and had Mortimer executed. His mother retired in great state and wore jewel-encrusted silk gowns until right before she died, when she changed into a nun’s habit to fool God. We don’t know if it worked.

10.  Nzinga Mbande, Warrior Queen of the Mbunda People of Central Africa(1583-1663), Who Never Used the Same Chair Twice 

In 1622, the Portuguese governor asked for a peace conference from the Mbundu people of Central Africa after they resisted his attempts at conquest. The wimpy King Mbande sent his accomplished sister, Nzinga, as his representative. The governor had the only chair in the room and offered Nzinga a mat to sit on, like a servant. But she wasn’t about to accept a position of inferiority. Nzinga snapped her fingers and a maidservant got on all fours. Nzinga sat down on her back. At the end of the meeting, Nzinga reportedly slit the servant’s throat, politely explaining to the governor, “I never use the same chair twice.” He caved in to her demands.

Fed up with her nervous wreck of a brother, it is possible Nzinga poisoned him for being an ineffectual twit, or maybe he killed himself for the same reason. She became regent for his young son, whom she reportedly executed for mouthing off. 

As undisputed queen, at first Nzinga played nice with the Portuguese, and converted to Catholicism to placate them. But when they insisted on taking over her entire country, she launched a thirty-year war against them, allying herself with the Dutch, and kicking their butt in a major battle in 1647 in which the sixty-four-year-old queen personally led the troops along with female warriors. She eventually made peace with the Portuguese and devoted herself to rebuilding her country, which today is known as Angola. She never married, though reportedly enjoyed a harem of hot men into her seventies. The brilliant warrior queen died in bed at the age of eighty.

Human Trafficking: The Real Dark Caravan

In honour of the release of Exquisite Captive today, I have Heather Demetrios stopping by with a touching, thought provoking guest post on a topic that is important to both of us. A topic that inspired so much of what is within the pages of Exquisite Captive.

Here, Heather Demetrois talks about human trafficking and how it inspired her jinni, and the series itself.

Human Trafficking: The Real Dark Caravan

One of the things that fascinates me about jinn mythology is that whether it’s a lighthearted story like I Dream of Jeannie, or something more serious like 1,001 Nights, we always see them as slaves. Here are these incredibly powerful creatures who can manifest your dreams out of thin air, and yet they are shackled to human masters who treat them like wish ATMs and are stored in tiny spaces, like bottles or lamps. Remember that part in Disney’s Aladdin when Genie talks about how he has huge powers and a “teeny tiny living space”? Yeah, that.

When I first started working on EXQUISITE CAPTIVE, my early beta readers were surprised that I’d decided to have my protagonist be a jinni and not a human that encounters a jinni. I guess, for me, I was always most interested in the magical creature whose very nature seemed to involve enslavement. What would it be like to be so powerful, yet seemingly exist only to serve people less powerful than you? The very first image I had of my jinni was her trapped in a bottle. It’s pitch black, she can’t use her magic, and she doesn’t know what’s going on. She wonders if she will die. I realized what a terrifying thing that must be, to only be free if your master wills it. When we think of jinn, it’s usually in terms of what we can get out of them. It’s been an interesting journey writing this book because it’s made me see how little we truly know these creatures and how quick we are to rattle off our hypothetical wishes when talking about them. In many ways, they are invisible. They are a means to an end, something to serve us and please us.

It wasn’t until I’d written quite a bit of the first book in the series that the word “trafficked” came to me. It was an “aha!” moment—of course that’s what happened to my jinni. That is the word we use when a child is kidnapped, drugged, and sold to an adult “master.” The only difference between what was happening to my jinni and the thousands of children, women, and men who are trafficked all over the world is that my jinni has magical powers and the hope that once her master makes his third wish, she’ll be free. As I delved deeper into the dark caravan—the jinn slave trade—I found myself beginning to draw on more obvious parallels between my novel and real life. I realized that my human masters were raised in a culture like ours where jinn are nothing more than magical servants who we believe exist for our pleasure. As such, it wasn’t likely they would treat their jinn with dignity. Just like in real life, my trafficked slaves are bought, sold, drugged, beaten, and raped. They’re taken from their homes and their families and given no hope of escape.

It wasn’t until the book was finished that I made the conscious decision to see it as a way to talk about the human slave trade with my teen readers. Hopefully some of them have read Patricia McCormick’s Sold, which chronicles the experiences of a young girl sold into slavery, but more likely than not, most of my readers might not even know that kids their age are being bought and sold every day. This is a tough topic—dark and brutal. I realized that my series had the potential to shed light on the plight of modern day slaves while engaging readers and giving them all the other stuff that makes a fantasy novel satisfying: romance, adventure, intrigue, and a whole new imaginative world (Ha! Get it? Ten points for an Aladdin reference on accident).

At the back of the novel, I’ve included the section on my website that provides more information on human trafficking, as well as ways to learn more and get involved in the fight. I’m also partnering with Nomi Network, a wonderful organization that started in Cambodia, helping survivors and women at risk of the slave trade. In fact, Cambodia is where I first heard about the problem of human trafficking. I was traveling there several years ago and it was something that was being talked about a lot. I think one of the gifts of fiction is that it allows us to see the world in a new way and can give us a chance to increase our empathy and galvanize us toward action. In the best situations, the fiction we read works inside us to make the world a better place.

I hope that you take a moment to check out the trafficking resources on my website or buy one of Nomi’s fantastic Buy Her Bag, Not Her Body bags (I have one, and purchased one for my editor and my agent). My husband even rocked a Buy Her Shirt, Not Her Body shirt at BEA because he’s cool like that. I often update the Dark Caravan Tumblr with information about trafficking, as well. It’s heartbreaking to know that, in this case, art imitates real life. Right now, there is a girl just like my jinni, Nalia, who is far from home, scared, and hurt. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever see the people she loves again. She’s terrified for her life, terrified at all the ways her body has been—and will be—used.

Maybe if we all collectively wish an end to the human slave trade—and act against such horrifying practices in some way—this reality will be relegated to fiction. 

Thank you Heather for stopping by, and spreading awareness of this very important cause. Please visit the links included for more information about human trafficking, and Heather's book.

Be sure to stop by tomorrow for my review of Exquisite Captive (spoiler alert, I LOVED it) and grab your copy, it's in stores today! 

Exquisite Captive links - Goodreads // Harper Collins Canada // Chapters // Amazon // Barnes and Noble

The Fall - Bethany Griffin Guest Post

There is nothing better in the lead up to Halloween than reading a deliciously creepy story. The Fall by Bethany Griffin is filled with chills, intense atmosphere and will send shivers down your spine. I have Bethany stopping by today with a guest post on how she created the mood of this chilling read.

You'll also want to be sure to enter the amazing giveaway below. Totally jealous of whoever wins this one!

First, here is a little info about this novel....

Title: THE FALL

Author: Bethany Griffin

Pub. Date: October 7, 2014

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Pages: 432

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Find it: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads

Madeline Usher is doomed.

She has spent her life fighting fate, and she thought she was succeeding. Until she woke up in a coffin.

Ushers die young. Ushers are cursed. Ushers can never leave their house, a house that haunts and is haunted, a house that almost seems to have a mind of its own. Madeline’s life—revealed through short bursts of memory—has hinged around her desperate plan to escape, to save herself and her brother. Her only chance lies in destroying the house.

In the end, can Madeline keep her own sanity and bring the house down? The Fall is a literary psychological thriller, reimagining Edgar Allan Poe’s classic The Fall of the House of Usher.

Bethany gives some amazing insight into capturing the atmosphere of this novel in her guest post below...

The atmosphere and mood seems to be a huge part of this story. Discuss how you created the particular tone/atmosphere for this novel.

This is an interesting question, and one that sort of makes me question my writing process, because I’m not sure if I can separate creating atmosphere completely from all the other parts of writing, and in this book it permeates everything, in some ways the atmosphere is the story since it’s so connected to setting, plot, and characters!

To begin with I read Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher several times. I made a list of words from Poe’s story that I wanted to use in mine as well as some descriptions like the blasted white trees and the eye-like windows that I wanted to be sure to include. Once I started I didn’t go back to Poe’s story, and I’m not sure I remembered I had the list. I do remember that at one point I realized I’d used darkness/blackness too many times and ended up having to go to a thesaurus where I found the word tenebrous, which appears once, I think.

The first scene was the first thing I wrote. If I couldn’t pull that one off, I knew I couldn’t pull off the book. It had to be awful and claustrophobic, but the reader also had to have the sense that this wasn’t a completely new or unexpected happening for Madeline—waking up in a coffin, no, but waking up from a trance was something she was very used to...so she’s weirdly calm until she realizes where she is.

My first draft process is to quickwrite, either on paper or on my computer, and then to layer in details, take out unnecessary words and repetitive details, layer in more, take out more, layer in more, and so on, Some of the atmosphere comes from the first draft, I have a picture in my head I want to create, some of it comes from that layering process as I try to make the picture that’s in my head clearer/understandable to readers.

To create the atmosphere in the Fall I called upon every nightmare I’d ever had. I had a lot of nightmares as a child, and still have them occasionally. In my early 20’s I had a reoccurring dream that involved being unable to move. I tried to work the horror of that into the story as best I could, as well as other terrors of childhood.

Poe’s story has a heavy sense of gloom, and in my own way I hope I created a mirroring heaviness and gloom, a feeling of being watched, a feeling of history which makes Madeline’s efforts to escape both frighteningly futile as well as wonderfully brave.

A large part of the tone was a sense that the house was watching all the time. Some weird things from my childhood—my family was Pentecostal, and I had a lot of confusion with religion--there was definitely a sense in childhood of not being alone, of being watched, and a feeling that the watcher was all-powerful but not entirely kindly. I was the only girl in my family, and because of this was gifted with a large and not all-together-uncreepy collection of expensive china dolls. They were lovely during the day, but at night they watched me. I made bargains with them if they let me live through the night.

If I’m being honest, I woke up a few times in adulthood with horrible nightmares, realizing those creepy creepy dolls were in storage in my attic. I moved them to the garage, and eventually got rid of them, but the sense of malevolence I felt from them remains, as well as that sense of helplessness, of making bargains with something you don’t understand.

At the same time the setting for the house was every dark and fascinatingly dismal place I’ve ever visited, with bits of beauty shining through. I love urban decay, and the house was most certainly decaying around Madeline.

Whether atmosphere, or simply plot- I’m fascinated by characters who are trapped, and Madeline was undeniably trapped by the house and her relationship with it.

I feel like once I start a story, I find the atmosphere in the same way I find the main character’s voice? Sometimes you write scenes where you lose the voice, or the atmosphere, particularly if you are adding in a new scene, or have taken a break for awhile, but when you lose that thread, it’s really obvious, and really just means you have to immerse yourself in the story to find it again.

A huge thank you to Bethany for writing up such a fantastic post, and the ladies at Rockstar Book Tours for including me.

Bethany Griffin is a high school English teacher who prides herself on attracting creative misfits to elective classes like Young Adult Literature, Creative Writing, and Speculative Literature. She is the author of HANDCUFFS, MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, DANCE OF THE RED DEATH, GLITTER AND DOOM, and THE FALL. She lives with her family in Kentucky.

Website/Twitter/Facebook/Goodreads

Be sure to check out the other stops on the tour. Here are the rest of the stops for this week. You can view the whole tour schedule on Rockstar Book Tours website.

9/29/2014- Bookish - Interview

9/30/2014- A Glass of Wine - Guest Post

10/1/2014- Stories & Sweeties - Review

10/2/2014- Novel Novice - Review

10/3/2014- Burning Impossibly Bright - Interview

Be sure to enter the giveaway below to win these amazing prizes! That scarf is amazing! The necklace, and of course those amazing bookmarks!

The contest is USA only and you can enter by using the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Unspeakable Blog Tour - Guest Post

As part of the blog tour for Unspeakable, I was able to get Caroline to write a brief guest post to share something about the novel. Since the novel is inspired by the real sinking of the Empress of Ireland I was immediately curious about this aspect of the story. I asked Caroline to discuss the benefits and challenges of grounding her story in a historical event.

Her answer is enlightening, and wonderful...

Great question. My series, GREENER GRASS: my new release, UNSPEAKABLE; and my upcoming Fall book THE GOSPEL TRUTH, are all historical fiction. Each one is set in very different time periods and circumstances but in all, the historical event is a huge part of the setting and the plot from the Irish potato famine, to the sinking of the Empress of Ireland, to slavery in the south. Not only do the characters deal with the struggles we all have in every day life, on top of that they are caught up in an incredible moment in history.
 For Ellie, in UNSPEAKABLE, it’s the night she barely escapes the sinking of the Empress of Ireland. How can she go on, how can she ever be happy again, when so many did not survive? I read a lot of Titanic survivor accounts to get a sense of lives after the tragedy. I love both reading and writing historical fiction because it really makes history come alive.
 Researching and learning as much as I can about the time and the events is an obsession, really. :) The challenge for me is to know when to stop researching and start writing. I try to balance it by focussing on the fictional characters. That way, the story isn’t just about what happened -- but who experiences it and how it changes them.

I also reviewed Unspeakable today (spoiler - I loved it) and urge you to check out this wonderful novel.  

If you happen to live in the Ottawa area there is going to be an exhibit showcasing artifacts salvaged from the wreckage at the Canadian Museum of History starting May 30th. As someone who didn't know anything about this prior to reading Unspeakable, it's certainly inspired me to learn more. I will definitely be checking out the exhibit.

Here are some links to where you can purchase a copy of the book

Chapters // Amazon Canada

What do you think of novels that are based, even in part, around a real life event? How important is accuracy to you?