Guest Post: Marianne de Pierres On Things You Can't Live Without!

A huge welcome back to Marianne de Pierres! I interviewed Marianne last year on the release of Peacemaker so am thrilled to have her write this guest post to celebrate the release of book two, Mythmaker!

My Addictions - Marianne de Pierres

        1)      TV series – drama and comedy: It’s become my great passion of late. I gobble them down at a           phenomenal rate, and love nothing better than a binge watch of an entire 6 or 7 season series over a few days. It makes for such a great viewing experience. Lately I’ve binge-watched WEEDS, GILMORE GIRLS, and a bunch of UK period drama mini-series like Sense and Sensibility and Emma, but my top watch for this year is OUTLANDER. Ronald D. Moore is da man!

2)      Basketball – the greatest sport on earth. I watch, coach, and play. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without it.

3)      Books – natch! I’m surrounded by them every day in my library/ sitting room/ office. So many good stories to read, so little time.

4)      Cake – life is all about the next great slice of (gluten free) cake. Truly.

5)      Chocolate – yes, of course, and right now I’m on a strict detox.

6)      My family – I suffer unnerving withdrawals when I can’t see or speak to them.

7)      My birds – see family problem above. I have three noisy galahs who are demand air time.

8)      The Internet -- for shame, for shame, but it is the truth. My websites and I are co-dependent.

9)      My peeps -- I mean the real ones. The friends who are genuine; those who I trust to be honest and kind. 

      10)   Writing – well I would hope so… but, the truth is, I definitely am. Can’t go more than a few days at the most without writing words. Otherwise, I get unbearably cranky. 

 Marianne de Pierres is the author of the acclaimed Parrish Plessis series, the award-winning Sentients of Orion science fiction series and the Peacemaker SF Western series. The Parrish Plessis series has been translated into eight languages and adapted into a roleplaying game. She’s also the author of a teen dark fantasy series.
Marianne is an active supporter of genre fiction and has mentored many writers. She lives in Brisbane, Australia, with her husband and three galahs. Marianne writes award-winning crime under the pseudonym Marianne Delacourt. Visit her websites at www.mariannedepierres.com and www.tarasharp.com.au and www.burnbright.com.au

Review & Giveaway: To Bear An Iron Key by Jackie Morse Kessler

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for the fabulous To Bear An Iron Key by Jackie Morse Kessler! Click the banner above to follow the tour, read interviews, guest posts and other reviews!

To Bear An Iron Key - Jackie Morse Kessler

ISBN - 9781939765192

Publisher - Month9Books

Release date - May 6th 2014

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Chapters Indigo! | TBD |  

To Bear an Iron Key is the first in a new and exciting series from acclaimed author Jackie Morse Kessler.

Five years ago, the young witch Bromwyn refused a gift from the powerful fairy king. Tonight, on Midsummer, that decision comes back to haunt her. When her best friend Rusty picks the wrong pocket, he and Bromwyn are all that stand between their village and the rampaging fairies who have pushed through the World Door. If they cannot outwit the fairy king and queen before the World Door closes at sunrise, the friends will lose everything—their village, Bromwyn's magic, and Rusty's life.

From To Bear an Iron Key by Jackie Morse Kessler: 

"Bromwyn turned to face the burning fields. Reaching deep inside of herself, she closed her eyes and touched the core of her power, the place where her magic lived, where it connected her to all of Nature. She held onto that magic, let it fill her almost to the bursting point, and then she cast it out onto the fields. It blanketed the rows of spelt, and she felt as it rode the wind—Air—and then touched the grain—Earth—and then sizzled around the fire."

I find it hard to resist stories involving the fey/fairies/faeries so when I read the synopsis for To Bear An Iron Key it went straight on to my wishlist and I jumped at the chance to join the blog tour.

Bromwyn lives in a world where her grandmother is known as Wise One, her mother is Mistress Cartomancer and Bromwyn herself is in training to become a full-fledged witch and betrothed to Brend, the blacksmith's apprentice. The action all starts when Rusty (real name - Derek!) steals something from the wrong person, Bromwyn's grandmother but it soon becomes clear that this has somehow come about as part of Bromwyn's final test before finishing her apprenticeship. What looks like a swirling silver marble turns out to be the iron key that locks the World Door where the Fey come through once a year, on Midsummer's Eve. She knows this can't possibly be a good thing and is more worried about what it means for Rusty, as the one who bears the Key is the Guardian of the door, has to deal with the Fey and ensuring chaos doesn't ensue whilst they are free in the human world. 

Rusty surprises her though, by showing that he can be mature and not act the fool - he interacts with the Fey as if he had been doing it all his life and he finally be the man he wants Bromwyn to see, not just the little boy who has been her best friend for so long. I loved all the characters in TBAIK, Bromwyn and Rusty were fantastic main characters and the supporting characters too were well written, well developed and likeable - even the bad guys of the piece! The relationship between Bromwyn and Rusty was great, truly believable 'best friends' with the hint of something more - no instalove here thankfully. Bromwyn's relationships with her mother and grandmother were much more complicated, there seemed to a lot of resentment and anger on Bromwyn's part but this all added to the authenticity of the characters. Both the writing and the world-building were fantastic, you find yourself completely immersed in village life, down to the finest detail and I completely agree with Bromwyn's need to be barefoot all the time. It was the little details like this that made TBAIK a really lovely read, it has a dollop of fantasy, fairy tale, romance and mystery that would make it appeal to both a YA and older MG audience. The Fey in TBAIK were more 'real' than a lot of fairy books, there were no sparkling and glitter bombs here, just a great read! I'm not sure if TBAIK is a stand-alone or a series but either way if you like books about the Fey (that aren't Tinkerbell like) then do make sure to read Iron Key, it's got a bit of something for everybody and I'd love to see more of the world Jackie has created.

About the Author

Jackie is the author of the acclaimed YA series Riders of the Apocalypse, published by Harcourt/Graphia. The first two books in the quartet, HUNGER and RAGE, are YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers; in addition, HUNGER has been nominated for several awards and RAGE is an International Reading Association YA Choice. RAGE, LOSS and BREATH are Junior Library Guild selections.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

International Giveaway

• Four (4) winners will receive an ebook copy of To Bear an Iron Key by Jackie Morse Kessler (INT)

• One (1) winner will receive an ebook copy of To Bear an Iron Key by Jackie Morse Kessler AND a $10 Amazon Gift Card or B&N Gift Card – Winner’s Choice (INT)

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Blog Tour & Giveaway: Exodus 2022 by Kenneth Bennet

Welcome to my stop on the tour for Kenneth Bennet's epic Exodus 2022! Scroll down to read about his favorite sci-fi film and to win a copy of the book! Look out for my review at the end of the month, if you like sci-fi you'll like Exodus 2022!

Joe Stanton is in agony. Out of his mind over the death of his young daughter. Unable to contain his grief, Joe loses control in public, screaming his daughter’s name and causing a huge scene at a hotel on San Juan Island in Washington State. Thing is, Joe Stanton doesn’t have a daughter. Never did. And when the authorities arrive they blame the 28-year-old’s outburst on drugs. What they don’t yet know is that others up and down the Pacific coast - from the Bering Sea to the Puget Sound - are suffering identical, always fatal, mental breakdowns. With the help of his girlfriend, Joe struggles to unravel the meaning of the hallucination destroying his mind. As the couple begins to perceive its significance - and Joe’s role in a looming global calamity - they must also outwit a billionaire weapons contractor bent on exploiting Joe’s new-found understanding of the cosmos, and outlast the time bomb ticking in Joe’s brain. Is he losing his mind–or his world?

Exodus 2022 - Kenneth G Bennet

ISBN - 9781620152126

Publisher - Booktrope Publishing

Release date - May 20th 2014

Find - Goodreads | LibraryThing | Amazon

Read an excerpt of Exodus 2022 here.

”Bennett, after a neat Dean Koontz–style curtain-raiser, keeps raising the stakes… Deft storytelling and a riptide of action.” - KIRKUS REVIEWS

"I'm not usually a sci-fi thriller enthusiast. But Kenneth G. Bennett has set this on-the-edge-of-your-seat story in the Great Pacific Northwest where I make my home. After reading EXODUS 2022, this place will never look quite the same. His best yet."- Rebecca Wells, author of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and other novels.

"Exodus 2022 is an extraordinary book—a wild, thrilling ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering and worrying about Joe, Ella, and an unforgettable creature named Mia, while tackling themes as big as life itself, the connection between humankind and the natural world, and the fate of the planet as we know it. Highly recommended!"- Syrie James, bestselling author of The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen

Science Fiction On Film

My favorite sci-fi movie is “Contact”, adapted from a book by Carl Sagan—astronomer, physicist, and creator of the original Cosmos series.

“Contact”, in case you haven’t seen it, tells the story of a radio astronomer (played by Jodie Foster) who intercepts encrypted radio signals from an alien civilization. The signals contain the plans for a fantastically advanced machine—a machine that could lead to a huge forward leap in human civilization or (as the doubters believe) to annihilation.

I love the uplifting, “anything is possible” tone implicit in Contact as well as the grand mystery and intrigue of the story. Contact addresses one of the biggest questions of all: “Are we alone in the universe?” and wraps it an intelligent, engaging, inspiring story. 

 
About the Author

Kenneth G. Bennett is the author of the young adult novels, THE GAIA WARS and BATTLE FOR CASCADIA, and the new sci-fi thriller, EXODUS 2022. A wilderness enthusiast who loves backpacking, skiing and kayaking, Ken enjoys mysteries, science fiction, action adventure stories and, most especially, novels that explore the relationship between humans and the wild. He lives on an island in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and son and two hyperactive Australian Shepherds.

THE GAIA WARS series was optioned for film by Identity Films, LA in 2012, and both GAIA and BATTLE have been featured as Top 100 Bestsellers in Teen Literature and Fiction on Amazon. Kirkus Reviews called THE GAIA WARS “A solid first entry of a promising, imaginative new young-adult fantasy series featuring a well-crafted character.”

Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook

 Giveaway- INT

One (1) winner will win a Kindle Fire!

Fifteen (15) winners will receive a signed paperback copy of Exodus 2022

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Blog Tour & Giveaway: Chantress Alchemy by Amy Butler Greenfield

Chantress Alchemy (Chantress Trilogy #2)
by Amy Butler Greenfield
352 pages
Publisher: Margaret K McElderry Books
Release Day: May 6th 2014

Rate: YOUR RATING

Synopsis:

Since defeating Lord Scargrave with her music, Lucy, the last Chantress, has lived by the sea, mastering the intricacies of Wild Magic. But now her quiet life is about to end: the wheat crop has failed, the people are rebelling, and Lucy is called urgently back to King Henry IX’s court. There she finds the Inner Council planning to save England by making gold through alchemy. But the golden crucible — the critical element in the alchemical process — has been stolen, its guards murdered. Lucy is charged with finding the traitor behind the attack. 

Meanwhile, enemies old and new are gathering. Scargrave's brutal Chantress-hunter has become King Henry's closest advisor. Lucy’s beloved Nat has fallen out of favor and is shunned by his colleagues; their romance means trouble for both of them. Worst of all, something goes wrong with Lucy’s magic. The palace is a labyrinth, and there’s a monster at its heart — a monster who may have the power to defeat Lucy once and for all. 

Amy Butler Greenfield returns to the beguiling world of Chantress for a suspenseful tale of courtly intrigue, music, and magic in Chantress Alchemy.

Having read - and loved - Chantress last year I couldn't resist the temptation to join in the blog tour for the shiny new sequel, Chantress Alchemy. Things are different now for Lucy, living in a secluded corner of Norfolk away from the intrigues of court but she's the last Chantress alive and that peace surely won't last forever. Sure enough, she is summoned to court to discover the whereabouts of a missing crucible essential to the council's plan to create gold (using alchemy) to provide for the country as most of England is starving and in dire need. Nothing ever goes smoothly though and Lucy soon finds herself battling unknown enemies and trying desperately to stay alive.

Click on the banner to follow the FFBC Blog Tour!

Amy Butler Greenfield was a grad student in history when she gave into temptation and became a writer. Since then, she has become an award-winning author. 

Amy grew up in the Adirondack Mountains and later studied history at Williams College, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Oxford. She now lives with her family in England, where she writes, bakes double-dark-chocolate cake, and plots mischief.

Win (1) hardback of Chantress Alchemy (INT)

Win (1) hardback of Chantress Alchemy (US Only)

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Question of the Day

If you could pick a magic power to have, what power would you choose?

Review & Giveaway: The Looking Glass by Jessica Arnold

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for the super creepy, twisted The Looking Glass by Jessica Arnold! Click the banner above to follow the tour, read interviews, guest posts and other reviews of this retelling of the Alice In Wonderland story!

Find the diary, break the curse, step through The Looking Glass!

Fifteen-year-old Alice Montgomery wakes up in the lobby of the B&B where she has been vacationing with her family to a startling discovery: no one can see or hear her. The cheap desk lights have been replaced with gas lamps and the linoleum floor with hardwood and rich Oriental carpeting. Someone has replaced the artwork with eerie paintings of Elizabeth Blackwell, the insane actress and rumored witch who killed herself at the hotel in the 1880s. Alice watches from behind the looking glass where she is haunted by Elizabeth Blackwell. Trapped in the 19th-century version of the hotel, Alice must figure out a way to break Elizabeth’s curse—with the help of Elizabeth's old diary and Tony, the son of a ghost hunter who is investigating the haunted B&B—before she becomes the inn's next victim.

The Looking Glass - Jessica Arnold

ISBN -9781939765901

Publisher - Month9Books

Release date - April 15th 2014

Find -  Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | The Book Depository | IndieBound

Review

Alice In Wonderland has a soft spot in my heart, it's the only book I remember my great-grandmother reading me before she died! I love re-tellings and when I came across the synopsis for The Looking Glass I knew I had to read it. Our main character is Alice Montgomery and she's staying in a haunted hotel with her parents, on vacation. Whilst she might have the more famous Alice's name and there are numerous mentions of mirrors, rabbit holes and other assorted 'Alice-ism's' The Looking Glass is more of an ode to the Gothic mystery novel with Alice as the inspiration.

The hotel that Alice and her family is staying in was once the home of Elizabeth Blackwell and her family. A talented actress, she descended into madness after being jilted by a possible con-man, taking her father and sister along for the ride. Obsessed by a witch hiding in her mirror Elizabeth finds some books containing spells & other information on prolonging your life by taking the souls of others. Fast forward to the present day and Alice finds herself firmly lodged in the spirit side of the hotel, frantically looking through the mirror whilst trying to work out how to escape from the limbo she finds herself in and finding the means to break the curse placed on the house by Elizabeth.

I can quite honestly say I loved everything about The Looking Glass except for one thing - the case of insta-love between Alice and Tony, the son of a ghost hunter who is staying in the hotel hoping to catch a glimpse of something ghost-like. This was the only part of the story that felt under-developed and unbelievable, the fact that Alice could communicate with Tony while stuck in the house would lead to true love between two teenagers a short period of time later did not ring true and so slightly spoiled the book for me, dropping from 'up all night' to 'stay up late' instead. I can understand them developing feelings for each other as time went on but as the time period of the book, Alice's part anyway, was only over a few days the relationship felt too rushed for me, to be as intense as it appeared to be by the end of the book. 

Everything else was fantastic though. Between a peculiar little girl appearing on the wrong side of the mirror taunting Alice, Elizabeth's discovery of the blood stained journals, the race to find a way to break the curse placed on the house and Alice escaping from it herself lead to a great story. I love this sort of Gothic mystery with ghosts, witches, hidden attics and curses. Combine all those elements together with the dual story of Alice & Elizabeth and you get a compelling read, one which was hard to put down. In my opinion it's almost a wholly original take on the Wonderland story and the story is wrapped up in one book, a very rare thing these days although I'd quite happily read a prequel about the original witch! If you're a fan of anything vaguely Gothic and/or inspired by Alice then make sure pick up a copy of The Looking Glass, you won't regret it.

About the Author

Jessica Arnold writes YA, codes e-books, and is currently a graduate student in publishing at Emerson College in Boston. She spends most of her time in class or work or slogging through the homework swamp. If she has a spare moment, she’s always up for a round of Boggle. Given the opportunity, Jessica will pontificate at length on the virtues of the serial comma, when and where to use an en dash, and why the semicolon is the best punctuation mark pretty much ever.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Giveaway (INT) 

Winner will be drawn on May 9th!

Four (4) winners will receive an e-book copy of The Looking Glass by Jessica Arnold (INT) ·         

One (1) winner will receive an e-book copy of The Looking Glass by Jessica Arnold AND a $10 Amazon Gift Card or B&N Gift Card – Winner’s Choice (INT)

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Blog Tour Review & Giveaway: Of Breakable Things by A. Lynden Rolland

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for A Lynden Rolland's debut novel, Of Breakable Things! Click on the banner to follow the other stops on the tour, read interviews with the author and find out more about the book.

Of Breakable Things - A Lynden Rolland
ISBN - 9781939765154
Publisher - Month9Books
Release date - April 29th 2014
Find - Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | The Book Depository | IndieBound

A captivating debut about the fragility of life, love, and perspective.

Alex Ash was born broken. Living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is like living on death row, but she is willing to fight for her frail life as long as it includes the boy next door. Chase has always held the pieces of her together, but when he dies tragically, Alex’s unfavorable fate becomes a blessing in disguise.

Faced with a choice, she finds herself in a peculiar world where rooms can absorb emotions and secrets are buried six feet under. Among limitless minds, envious spirits, and soulless banshees, Alex hardly rests in peace.

Yet again, I've read another debut novel that feels like it's been written by an author with several published novels under their belt. So far this year has been a great year for debut authors and I can only hope the trend continues! What first drew me to Of Breakable Things was that amazing cover, haunting & sad, it screams read me so without thinking I added it to my wishlist and jumped at the chance to take part in the blog tour. There are two different summaries of the book out in the wide world, the one on Goodreads leaves a lot more to the imagination as it makes no mention of the fact that Alex is terminally ill with a rare connective tissue disorder, Ehlers-Danlos (which I know a bit about as I was tested for it when I was first ill as a teenager, usually diagnosed in childhood it can occasionally remain undiagnosed into adulthood). There are varying forms of the illness and Alex is unlucky enough to have the variation that affects the whole body, tissues and organs, meaning death is always a high probability and at a young age.

Alex and Chase are best friends, Chase is completely normal with a large family and lots of brothers, Alex lives with her dad after her mother passes away having had the same disease. Everyone that meets the two children are stunned by the depth of their connection, when Alex dies and finds herself in her old third grade classroom with her teacher and about to make the decision of where to go her teacher comments on how she didn't think it was possible for eight year olds to have found the love of their life. This is how deep their bond is, so much so that after Chase dies in a tragic accident Alex willingly accepts that she is going to die because she doesn't want to be in a world without him. Alex eventually finds herself in Eidolon, the spirit town in California where all those that have died but have decided to not move on because of the spirit energy they have, live, work and even go to school. On hearing Chase's voice she knows she has made the right choice and sets out to find Chase & his family, easier said than done though as while she finds his family Chase is nowhere to be seen. 

All manner of things proceed to happen after her arrival, people's utter shock at her resemblance to her mother, banshees appearing close to the town, a box of old letters mysteriously appearing written by someone called Eviar and addressed to Sephi. People disappear, are attacked and make mention of Paradise which is not at all what it sounds like. There are Legacy spirits and incomers, intrigue and mystery but the over-riding them of the book is romance. Of Breakable Things doesn't read like your typical love story though, Chase & Alex have a completely natural relationship that develops as they grow older. Chase sees past her medical problems but never has the opportunity (whilst he's alive) to tell her how he feels and fears that Alex will think he only loves her because she is so fragile. Both of them ending up in Eidolon gives them the chance to be open & honest with each other and finally be together.

I could go on and on about this book, there were so many great characters - I particularly loved Chase's brothers, especially Jonas who it would appear has also been in love with Alex for quite some time, and Liv Frank (still alive but with the ability to sense ghosts) who was regarded as somewhat of an outcast too, and of course Alex & Chase themselves. Alex was so strong considering she's spent her whole life knowing she is going to die at some point, I loved her relationship with the Lasalle brothers and how she was a part of their family. Ms. Rolland's writing really is quite beautiful, it's not often I find myself highlighting passages but I certainly did in Of Breakable Things. I think what was most well done is that although the main theme of the book is death the story never came across as depressing. There was humor, friendship, love - all of which came together to make a wonderfully unique story. Another plus point was the use of different 'points of view', mainly Chase and Alex along with the use of the letters from Eviar as part of the narrative added to the unique feel of the story and added to the mystery. The level of detail was incredible, the spirit world, the rules they have to follow and Eidolon itself were so real in their description you could almost be there yourself. For a debut author that is some fantastic world-building and I can't wait to read more of Ms. Rolland's work. I'm hoping that there's going to be some sort of sequel/prequel/anything to Of Unbreakable Things because although the ending was the perfect finish there could so many more stories featuring the same/different characters and I'd like to see more of the spirit world beyond Eidolon.

I was drawn into the story of Alex and Chase from the very beginning, so much so that I read this in one sitting. The only - slight - negative point for me was towards the end of the story it started to drag just a little bit during the build-up to the grand finale which is why I rated it 'stay up late' rather than 'up all night'. If you like stories about friendship, family, love and what might actually exist beyond human boundaries then Of Breakable Things is definitely worth a read.

A. Lynden Rolland was born and raised in Annapolis, Maryland, a picturesque town obsessed with boats and blue crabs. She has always been intrigued by the dramatic and the broken, compiling her eccentric tales of tragic characters in a weathered notebook she began to carry in grade school. She is a sports fanatic, a coffee addict, and a lover of Sauvignon Blanc, thunderstorms and autumn leaves. When she isn’t hunched behind a laptop at her local bookstore, she can be found chasing her two vivacious children. She now resides just outside Annapolis with her husband and young sons.


Author Links:  Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

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Wizard's Promise Blog Tour - Cassandra Rose Clarke

Welcome to the blog tour for the fabulous Wizard's Promise by Cassandra Rose Clarke! The Wizard's Promise is the first book in a new duology set in the same amazing world as Assassin's Curse and Pirate's Wish but featuring different characters due and due out at the beginning of May, look out for my review towards the end of this month. Without further ado I'll hand you over to Cassandra and her childhood reading habits!

I have a graduate degree in creative writing, which means I’ve attended a lot of workshops in my time. Every single one of them starts the same: you go around the room and introduce yourself by listing your favorite books and authors.

This might seem like a no-brainer, but in reality it was a delicate balance. You couldn’t pick any of the “obvious” books (i.e., things assigned in high school English classes), nor could you go too far down the genre well, although choosing authors with a slight genre bent was acceptable. I was never clear if you got bonus points for listing authors your classmates hadn’t heard of, though.

I found the whole process rather tedious and exhausting, but it did mean I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my favorite authors, and, by extension, authors who’ve influenced my writing—the more interesting question, I think, and one which sometimes yields a slightly different answer from the “favorite book” category.

I’ve written about my favorite books AND my authorial influences on my website, but since we’re here today celebrating The Wizard’s Promise, a YA novel, I think I’d like to shift the focus to stories and authors that inspired me when I was younger. These are the books that left an indelible imprint on me as a kid, when I first dreamed about becoming an author, but they are also favorites I never got to name in my creative writing workshops in grad school.

First up is a picture book that delights me to this day: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg. It’s not so much a story as it is a collection of strange, surreal illustrations, each accompanied by a single tag line. The idea is that you can tell your own stories about the illustrations. This book blew my mind when I first encountered it in the library. It was a book that you wrote yourself. It also helped me to understand the connection between storytelling, something I did to myself all the time, and the books lining the shelves of my library. I’d say if I had to pick any one book that influenced me on my path to becoming a writer, it was this one.

But what sorts of things influenced me to become the kind of writer that I am? When people ask me what sort of stories I write, I usually say speculative fiction—a catch all term for science fiction, fantasy, and the weirdo in-between stuff. The Wizard’s Promise is itself an adventure fantasy, and I have an adult science fiction novel out too. But as a kid, I didn’t read fantasy or even all that much science fiction. I was all about horror.

It helped that horror was rather popular at the time (this was the early ‘90s), and the Goosebumps books were everywhere amongst kids my age. I started with them, of course, and I tore through their pages, frightening and delighting myself in equal measure.  I think I read Mary Downing Hahn’s Wait Till Helen Comes about five hundred times. Eventually, I moved on to RL Stine’s YA series, Fear Street, and I was a huge fan of Lois Duncan’s books (she wrote I Know What You Did Last Summer, among other things). By junior high, I’d graduated on to the master of all things horror, Stephen King.

I’m not sure what it was about horror that captured my fancy  as a kid. I don’t care for it much anymore; rarely do I watch horror movies or read scary books. But one thing about all those horror stories I read stuck with me, and that is the focus on the strange and the uncanny. Speculative fiction is a huge, catch-all term, but there is one commonality: stuff is fantastical. It couldn’t happen in the real world. And while I did learn later on that some of things I was reading about in those scary books did, in fact, really happen, much of it didn’t - ghosts and monsters and vampires and all the rest. So even though I don’t consider myself a horror writer, it was horror that shaped me as a writer.

There were other books and authors I adored when I was younger - I read voraciously, gobbling up books across all genres. I read every single Little House on the Prairie book, from Little House in the Big Woods (my favorite) to The First Four Years. I read every Newbury nominee the year I was in third grade, and I read my copy of Harriet the Spy so much it fell apart. But it was the horror stories, and the eerie, surreal strangeness of Harris Burdick (really, the closest you can come to a picture book horror story, now that I think about it) that influenced me the most.

Cassandra Rose Clarke grew up in south Texas and currently lives in a suburb of Houston, where she writes and teaches composition at a local college. She graduated in 2006 from The University of St. Thomas with a B.A. in English, and two years later she completed her master’s degree in creative writing at The University of Texas at Austin. In 2010 she attended the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop in Seattle, where she was a recipient of the Susan C. Petrey Clarion Scholarship Fund.
Cassandra’s first adult novel, The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, was a finalist for the 2013 Philip K. Dick Award, and her YA novel, The Assassin’s Curse, was nominated for YALSA’s 2014 Best Fiction for Young Adults. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons and Daily Science Fiction.

Website | Twitter | Goodreads | Facebook | 

A huge thank you to Cassandra for joining me today on Bookish Outsider, I always love reading about other people's reading - especially authors!

The Assassin's Curse | The Witch's Betrayal | The Automaton's Treasure | The Pirate's Wish

Blog Tour & Giveaway - Daughter of Chaos by Jenn McConnel

Follow the Tour

'There comes a time in every witch's life when she must choose her path. Darlena's friends have already chosen, so why is it so hard for her to make up her mind? Now, Darlena is out of time. Under pressure from Hecate, the Queen of all witches, Darlena makes a rash decision to choose Red magic, a path no witch in her right mind would dare take. As a Red witch, she will be responsible for chaos and mayhem, drawing her deep into darkness. Will the power of Red magic prove too much for Darlena, or will she learn to control it before it's too late?'



  

Daughter of Chaos (Red Magic #1) - Jenn McConnel

ISBN -

Publisher - Month9Books

Release date -

Find - Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository | IndieBound | Amazon UK

Review

It's been a long time since I read anything involving witches, they haven't been in vogue for a long time - overshadowed by sparkly vampires, werewolves and other assorted creatures  - but I'm hoping that Daughter of Chaos, along with several other 'witchy' books being published, will help put them back in the limelight again.  

Darlena lives in a world where witchcraft is the norm, her parents are witches and the high school she attends is for witches too. All witches follow a path, White, Green or Black but Darlena is having trouble declaring. Her parents are Green, the boy she may be in love with has declared White and her best friend Rochelle is hurtling towards the Black Path. Things come to a head when Hecate, Queen of witches, shows up in Darlena's house forcing her to choose there and then. Without knowing what she's in for Lena declares Red and her life is never the same again. All of a sudden, goddesses are showing up all over the place - Persephone, Aphrodite and Pele all make appearances, and when they do Lena realizes that Red Magic is Chaos Magic, something she doesn't think she's capable of. 

Daughters of Chaos is Lena's journey to accepting the path she has chosen, growing up and her relationship with Justin, the ex-boyfriend, and her parents, neither of whom even want to entertain the idea that Lena is Red. I loved that the setting was present day, not a regular occurrence with witchy tales and I love that McConnel tied in perfectly the Hades & Persephone myth with Lena spending time in the Underworld. All the characters were well written, there wasn't a single weak one amongst them - Rochelle was suitably dark and I really liked her part of the story, I'm still not sure whether I was expecting that particular plot or not. Justin was lovely, only considered an ex at the beginning because he refused to sleep with Darlena, part of his strong feelings as a White witch. I loved how their relationship started to really turn into something real throughout the book and by how accepting he was willing to be of her involvement with Chaos.

Daughters of Chaos involved some of my favorite things - mythology, witches, goddesses, a hint of Shakespeare - and that's what kept me turning the pages. The writing was strong and the world-building  was fantastic, the premise of Black, White & Green paths in magic was a new take on the witchy novel (at least for me) and I can't wait to learn more about it all in the sequel which is hopefully not too many months away!

About the author

Jen McConnel first began writing poetry as a child. Since then, her words have appeared in a variety of magazines and journals, including Sagewoman, PanGaia, and The Storyteller (where she won the people’s choice 3rd place award for her poem, “Luna”).

She is also a former reviewer for Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA), and proud member of SCBWI, NCWN, and SCWW.

A Michigander by birth, she now lives and writes in the beautiful state of North Carolina. A graduate of Western Michigan University, she also holds a MS in Library Science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. When she isn't crafting worlds of fiction, she teaches college writing composition and yoga.

Once upon a time, she was a middle school teacher, a librarian, and a bookseller, but those are stories for another time.

- See more at: http://www.jenmcconnel.com/p/about-author.html#sthash.I6FQ1o13.dpuf

Jen McConnel first began writing poetry as a child. Since then, her words have appeared in a variety of magazines and journals, including Sagewoman, PanGaia, and The Storyteller (where she won the people’s choice 3rd place award for her poem, “Luna”).

She is also a former reviewer for Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA), and proud member of SCBWI, NCWN, and SCWW.

A Michigander by birth, she now lives and writes in the beautiful state of North Carolina. A graduate of Western Michigan University, she also holds a MS in Library Science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. When she isn't crafting worlds of fiction, she teaches college writing composition and yoga.

Once upon a time, she was a middle school teacher, a librarian, and a bookseller, but those are stories for another time.

- See more at: http://www.jenmcconnel.com/p/about-author.html#sthash.I6FQ1o13.dpuf

Jen McConnel first began writing poetry as a child. Since then, her words have appeared in a variety of magazines and journals, including Sagewoman, PanGaia, and The Storyteller (where she won the people’s choice 3rd place award for her poem, “Luna”).
She is also a former reviewer for Voices of Youth Advocates (VOYA), and a proud member of SCBWI, NCWN, and SCWW.
A Michigander by birth, she now lives and writes in the beautiful state of North Carolina. She’s a graduate of Western Michigan University, and she also earned her MS in Library Science at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. When she isn’t crafting worlds of fiction, she teaches writing composition at a community college. Once upon a time, she was a middle school teacher, a librarian, and a bookseller, but those are stories for another time. 

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Giveaway Information: (OPEN INT.) – Winner will be drawn April 25, 2014

Four (4) winners will receive an ebook copy of Daughter of Chaos by Jen McConnel (INT)      

One (1) winner will receive an ebook copy of Daughter of Chaos by Jen McConnel AND a $10 Amazon Gift Card or B&N Gift Card – Winner’s Choice (INT)

 

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