Waiting On Wednesday #174 - Wicked Like A Wildfire

Waiting On Wednesday, where we put the spotlight on upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating, is hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine. Does anyone know what's going with this? I notice Jill hasn't posted since August which is rather worrying...

This week's choice is -

Wicked Like A Wildfire - Lana Popovic

ISBN - 9780062436832

Publisher - Katherine Tegen Books

Release date - August 15 2017 

Find - Goodreads | Book Depository

All the women in Iris and Malina's family are born with a gleam - a unique way of manipulating beauty through magic. Seventeen-year-old Iris sees flowers as fractals and turns her kaleidoscope visions into glasswork, her twin sister Malina interprets moods as music, and their cold, distant mother Jasmina bakes scenery into decadent treats at her confectionery in Old Town Cattaro, Montenegro.

Jasmina forbids Iris and Malina to share their gleams with anyone, and above all, she forbids them to fall in love - being discovered could shatter the quiet lives they’ve built in their tucked-away, seaside town. But Iris and Malina are tired of abiding by their mother’s rules and rebel in secret whenever they can.

Yet when a mysterious, white-haired woman attacks their mother and leaves her hovering between life and death, the sisters unearth an ancient curse that haunts their line - a wicked bargain that masquerades as a blessing, and binds the twins’ fates - and hearts - to a force larger than life. To save each other, they must untangle a thousand years of lies and reveal their own hurtful secrets. But even the deepest sacrifice might not be enough.

Wicked Like a Wildfire is the first book in a sumptuous, bewitching duology about the power of love, death, magic, and the many faces of beauty.

How beautiful is that cover?  I can't wait to read this, I'm fascinated by the idea of a gleam as magic but devastated I have to wait until August...

Midwinter's Eve 2016 Giveaway!

Welcome to the Midwinter's Eve Giveaway Hop hosted by Bookhounds! Up for grabs is any book you like, either YA or Adult and up to the value of $15 from the Book Depository as long as they deliver to your country - find the list of countries here. Think of it as an extra Christmas present that you get to choose :) The hop runs from now through to midnight on December 31st, 2016 and simply follow the instructions on the rafflecopter to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out the linky for lots of other chances to win, thanks for entering and good luck!

December New Release Giveaway!

Welcome to the December 2016 New Release Giveaway Hop, hosted by It Starts At Midnight! The hop runs from today through to midnight on December 31st, 2016. Up for grabs is any new release this month up to the value of $22 from the Book Depository as long as they deliver to your country - find the list of countries here. 

All you have to do is choose any new release published in December and fill out the rafflecopter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out the linky for lots of other chances to win, thanks for entering and good luck!

Top Ten Tuesday #118 - New-To-Me Authors In 2016

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the fabulous girls cover at The Broke & The Bookish. This week's topic is -

Top Ten New-To-Me Authors I Read For The First Time In 2016

Not so many new-to-me authors this year for some reason as I've been reading lots of sequels and things but authors I'm already familiar with. Some of these are debut authors, some are authors I've been meaning to read for years, from Middle Grade to YA to Adult fiction, but I loved them all!

Waiting On Wednesday #173 - Luna: Wolf Moon

Waiting On Wednesday, where we put the spotlight on upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating, is hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine.

This week's choice is -

A Dragon is dead.

Corta Helio, one of the five family corporations that rule the Moon, has fallen. Its riches are divided up among its many enemies, its survivors scattered. Eighteen months have passed.

The remaining Helio children, Lucasinho and Luna, are under the protection of the powerful Asamoahs, while Robson, still reeling from witnessing his parent’s violent deaths, is now a ward - virtually a hostage - of Mackenzie Metals. And the last appointed heir, Lucas, has vanished off the surface of the moon.

Only Lady Sun, dowager of Taiyang, suspects that Lucas Corta is not dead, and more to the point - that he is still a major player in the game. After all, Lucas always was the Schemer, and even in death, he would go to any lengths to take back everything and build a new Corta Helio, more powerful than before. But Corta Helio needs allies, and to find them, the fleeing son undertakes an audacious, impossible journey - to Earth.

In an unstable lunar environment, the shifting loyalties and political machinations of each family reach the zenith of their most fertile plots as outright war erupts.

Luna: Wolf Moon continues Ian McDonald's saga of the Five Dragons.

I have been desperately waiting for news of this book. Luna: New Moon was a surprise top ten read for me this year in that I absolutely loved it. I can only hope Luna: Wolf Moon, the concluding part of the duology, is half as good. Either way, it's going to be one of the few books I allow myself to buy in 2017!

Guest Post: Windows Into The Soul - Tim Major

My first novel, YOU DON’T BELONG HERE, is about a house. 

Well, it isn’t. It’s about a man called Daniel Faint who has stolen a time machine. He’s wracked with remorse about events in his past, and he hopes to travel back in time to put them right. It’s about his disorientation as he tests the machine, his growing certainty that he’s being watched – perhaps by the locals of an unfamiliar town, perhaps by himself from the future, perhaps by his dead brother.

But it’s about a house.

The starting-point for YOU DON’T BELONG HERE, when it was intended to be a short story rather than a novel, was an article about people who had no permanent home, who instead acted as housesitters-cum-curators for vast properties in undesirable locations – warehouses, abandoned retail parks. It struck me that such a setup would be ideal for somebody intent on remaining hidden. No ties, a low profile. In the novel, Daniel Faint believes he’s being pursued, and housesitting a remote Cumbrian manor provides him with cover.

It’s about a specific house, too. My first office job was based in a large country manor that had once been a hotel. When I started, it had only been partially converted, with beds and TVs still in the rooms that hadn’t yet become offices. The swimming pool and golf course were available for use. Peacocks patrolled the grounds and screamed outside every window. It was strange and disorienting and kind of magical.

It was only recently that I realised that houses are central to most of my stories. My first published novella, CARUS & MITCH, is set entirely within the walls of a rural house, based on the home of a family friend from my childhood. BLIGHTERS features a giant alien slug confined to a Cumbrian bothy. My Mars stories revolve around the construction of sand-sculpted buildings, modelled on houses from the colonists’ memories. An as-yet-unpublished YA novel features a virtual-reality replica of the house I grew up in. Another project, still in the planning stages, features a house capable of independent thought.

There’s something practical in this preoccupation, I think. Gaining a clear mental image of a location goes a long way towards ‘finding’ a story, in the same way that pinning down the characteristics of a protagonist is vital. Moreover, characters are shaped, in part, by their surroundings. Your home isn’t just an expression of yourself. It goes the other way, too. It changes you. It makes you.

So, YOU DON’T BELONG HERE may be about time travel, paranoia, and disorientation. But it’s about a house. And it’s a house that, once it wraps its walls around Daniel Faint, refuses to let go.

Tim Major's time-travel thriller novel, YOU DON'T BELONG HERE (Snowbooks) is available now. He has also released two novellas, BLIGHTERS (Abaddon, 2016) and CARUS & MITCH (Omnium Gatherum, 2015) – the latter was shortlisted for a This Is Horror Award. His short stories have featured in Interzone, BFS Horizons and numerous anthologies. He is the Editor of the SF magazine, The Singularity, and blogs at www.cosycatastrophes.wordpress.com.

November New Release Giveaway!

Welcome to the November 2016 New Release Giveaway Hop, hosted by It Starts At Midnight! The hop runs from today through to midnight on November 30th, 2016. Up for grabs is any new release this month up to the value of $22 from the Book Depository as long as they deliver to your country - find the list of countries here. 

All you have to do is choose any new release published in November and fill out the rafflecopter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out the linky for lots of other chances to win, thanks for entering and good luck!