First and foremost, if you’ve heard the Amazon link-removal news and wonder why I’ve still got Amazon links up this week, it’s because I’d already built the post out before the news broke last night. Please bear with me. Hopefully, this will be a short-lived controversy. I’m going to watch it closely and see what I need to adjust for next week. As a general question though, which do you all prefer? Amazon links, Barnes and Noble, Indie? Where do you go to buy?
Have a great weekend everyone!
Martina
THIS WEEK’S GIVEAWAY
Before you scroll down to fill out the form for the four Friday giveaways this week, please pop over here to enter for a chance to win L.B. Schulman’s fantastic LEAGUE OF STRAYS, too!
Scroll down and fill out the form to enter this week’s Friday giveaways. Four books! YAY! Good luck!
Lovely, Dark and Deep
by Amy McNamara
Signed Hardcover
A resonant debut novel about retreating from the world after losing everything—and the connections that force you to rejoin it.
Since the night of the crash, Wren Wells has been running away. Though she lived through the accident that killed her boyfriend Patrick, the girl she used to be didn’t survive. Instead of heading off to college as planned, Wren retreats to her father’s studio in the far-north woods of Maine. Somehwere she can be alone.
Then she meets Cal Owen. Dealing with his own troubles, Cal’s hiding out too. When the chemistry between them threatens to pull Wren from her hard-won isolation, Wren has to choose: risk opening her broken heart to the world again, or join the ghosts who haunt her.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Lovely, Dark and Deep?
My favorite thing about Lovely, Dark and Deep might be the setting. I’ve imagined that house or variations on it since I was about thirteen or so. And the wild, powerful landscape around it – the dark and crazy verticality of the pines and the counterbalanced weighty geometry of a black-rock coastline. Not to mention the area around it, populated with all types of people, including people who make art a central and essential part of their lives. If I had the means, I’d try to start something like Mercy House. As a writer, it’s a dream to imagine a place both isolated and populated with kindred spirits.
Order Lovely, Dark and Deep on Amazon
View Lovely, Dark and Deep on Goodreads
My Beautiful Failure
by Janet Ruth Young
Signed Hardcover
A haunting account of a teen boy who volunteers at a suicide hotline and falls for a troubled caller.Billy is a sophomore in high school, and twice a week, he volunteers at Listeners, a suicide hotline.
Jenney is an “incoming,” a caller, a girl on the brink.
As her life spirals out of control, Jenney’s calls become more desperate, more frequent. Billy, struggling with the deteriorating relationship with his depressed father, is the only one who understands. Through her pain, he sees hope. Through her tears, he feels her heart. And through her despair, he finds love. But is that enough?
Acclaimed author Janet Ruth Young has written a stunning and powerful story with no easy answers; it is about pain and heartbreak, reality and illusion, and finding redemption and the strength to forgive in the darkest of times.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about My Beautiful Failure?
My favorite thing about My Beautiful Failure is that it lays out the rules for working at a suicide hotline and then my main character breaks nearly all of them one by one. I can just picture my readers cringing as they watch him rationalize his decisions to form a personal relationship with one of the callers. He thinks he has justification for crossing the hotline’s boundaries but his motivation is a selfish and romantic one.
Order My Beautiful Failure on Amazon
View My Beautiful Failure on Goodreads
Execution: Escape from Furnace 5
by Alexander Gordon Smith
Signed Hardcover
Alex Sawyer has escaped his underground nightmare to discover the whole world has become a prison, and Alfred Furnace is its master. Monsters rule the streets, leaving nothing but murder in their wake. Those who do not die become slaves to Furnace’s reign of cruelty. Alex is a monster too. He is the only one who can stop Furnace but in doing so he could destroy everything. Is he the executed or the executioner? Who will die? All Alex knows is that one way or another, it all ends now.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Execution: Escape from Furnace 5?
My favourite thing about Execution: Escape From Furnace 5… I think it has to be the fact that everything leads up to this book. It has been a roller coaster of a ride over the first four books – discovering the horrors of the prison, the nightmares that go on inside Furnace, the desperate battle to break free and stay free. It’s non-stop action and horror, and it all reaches an unbelievable, unforgettable climax in Execution. There are so many mysteries across the series, but they are all answered right here. We finally get to meet Alfred Furnace, and learn the truth about his plans for humankind. Writing these books was an incredible journey, I really felt like I lived every chase, every punch, every horror, every moment of laughter and relief. I experienced this story alongside Alex and his friends, and I was just happy to reach the end with them. Some characters made it, some didn’t, but we got there together. It was our story, and this is how it ends. I really hope you enjoy it! 🙂
Order Execution: Escape from Furnace 5 on Amazon
View Execution: Escape from Furnace 5 on Goodreads
Miss Fortune Cookie
by Lauren Bjorkman
Signed Hardcover
Meet Erin. Smart student, great daughter, better friend. Secretly the mastermind behind the popular advice blog Miss Fortune Cookie. Totally unaware that her carefully constructed life is about to get crazy.
It all begins when her ex-best friend sends a letter to her blog—and then acts on her advice. Erin’s efforts to undo the mess will plunge her into adventure, minor felonies, and possibly her very first romance.
What’s a likely fortune for someone no longer completely in control of her fate? Hopefully nothing like: You will become a crispy noodle in the salad of life.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Miss Fortune Cookie?
After spending years learning Mandarin at UC Berkeley and Davis, I rarely use it except for the occasional conversation at a Chinese restaurant. In the book, I get to show off my dwindling knowledge of the language. I also loved sifting through my vast fortune cookie fortune collection for ideas. But my favorite part is this. In the story, Erin blossoms from someone who hides from life to someone takes risks to pursue her dreams, much like I did at her age.
Order Miss Fortune Cookie on Amazon
View Miss Fortune Cookie on Goodreads
LAST WEEK’S GIVEAWAY WINNERS
No Man’s Land
by S.T. Underdahl
Signed Paperback Original
WINNER: Briana N.
Brian came home from Afghanistan.But he brought the war back with him.
If life were a movie, my role would be Emo Kid/Family Loser. My brother Brian would star as Master of the Universe. You might think it would be easy to resent him, but my brother is impossible to hate. Just like everyone else, I’m thrilled to have Brian back home from Afghanistan in one piece. But he’s different now.
Everyone refuses to see my brother’s dark secret. What will it take for them to wake up and face the ugly truth?
Praise for The Other Sister:
“Gently touching and ultimately hopeful, Underdahl lets the reader know that while the past can’t be erased, a new and loving present can be created—a vivid and moving story.”—Kirkus Reviews
“This vivid, realistic portrait of a family in transition will hold readers’ interest to the very last page.”—School Library Journal
Praise for Remember This:
“This demure novel’s veritas provides compelling reading.”—VOYA
“Heart-felt and touching. The mix of serious issues and lighter fare will appeal to a wide audience.”—KLIATT
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about No Man’s Land?
My favorite thing about No Man’s Land? Besides that it’s finally hitting shelves, haha? I suppose it would be that I think it’s opportunity to make people more aware of the challenges faced by veterans and their families as they return from foreign service. I also really enjoyed learning more about the hardcore music scene and hopefully challenging some misconceptions that people have when they see kids who embrace the emo style…it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re depressed, or that they harm or cut themselves. They’re just trying to express themselves in a unique and different way, something that makes some people uncomfortable, apparently.
View No Man’s Land on Goodreads
Flash Point
by Nancy Kress
Signed Hardcover
WINNER: Theresa
Reality TV meets a chillingly realistic version of America–and the fame game is on!
Amy had dreams of going to college, until the Collapse destroyed the economy and her future. Now she is desperate for any job that will help support her terminally ill grandmother and rebellious younger sister. When she finds herself in the running for a slot on a new reality TV show, she signs on the dotted line, despite her misgivings. And she’s right to have them. TLN’s Who Knows People, Baby–You? has an irresistible premise: correctly predict what the teenage cast will do in a crisis and win millions. But the network has pulled strings to make it work, using everything from 24/7 hidden cameras to life-threatening technology to flat-out rigging. Worse, every time the ratings slip, TLN ups the ante. Soon Amy is fighting for her life–on and off camera.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Flash Point?
My favorite thing about my book, as with nearly everything I write, are my characters. Sisters, Amy and Kayla could not be more different. Amy is responsible, hard-working, law-abiding, and sometimes she hates being like that. Kayla is bold, larcenous, and irresponsible, and sometimes she wishes she were more like Amy. I enjoyed writing that yearning all of us occasionally have for whatever traits we don’t possess, as well as how we reach for those traits in times of crisis. Even with sometimes disastrous results.
Passion Blue
by Victoria Strauss
Signed Hardcover
WINNER: Joni
When seventeen-year-old Giulia, the orphaned, illegitimate daughter of a Milanese nobleman, learns she’s to be packed off to a life behind convent walls, she begs an astrologer-sorcerer for a talisman that will secure what she’s certain is her heart’s desire: true love and a place where she belongs. But does she really know the compass of her heart? The convent of Santa Marta is full of surprises, including a workshop of nuns who are creating paintings of astonishing beauty using a luminous blue mixed from a secret formula: Passion Blue. As Giulia’s own artistic self is awakened she’s torn: should she follow the young man who promises to help her escape? Or stay and satisfy her growing desire to paint?
This richly imagined novel of a girl’s daring journey towards self-discovery transports readers into the fascinating world of Renaissance Italy where love and faith and art inspire passion – of many different hues.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Passion Blue?
Getting to step into a Renaissance painter’s workshop, through Giulia’s eyes. I’ve always adored Italian Renaissance paintings, but just as much, I’m fascinated by the technical details of creating them. For the most part, Renaissance painters didn’t buy ready-made materials–they crafted nearly everything themselves, from the surfaces they painted on, to the paints and lacquers they used, even to the frames. Paint recipes were valuable secrets, as closely-guarded as industrial secrets are today. I loved researching all of this. Writing Passion Blue let me become a painter myself for a little while–if only in my imagination. (And by the way, I can’t draw to save my life!)
View Passion Blue on Goodreads
IN STORES NEXT WEEK WITH AUTHOR INTERVIEWS
Bad Hair Day
by Carrie Harris
Hardcover
Kate Grable is geeked out to shadow the county medical examiner as part of her school’s premed program. But after he’s arrested for murder, she’s left with the bodies. And when Kate’s brother, Jonah, stumbles upon a dead gamer girl, Kate realizes that the zombie epidemic she cured last fall was only the beginning of the weirdness taking over her town. Someone—or something—is murdering kids. Something really hairy. And strong. Possibly with claws.
Could it be werewolves, like Jonah and his dorktastic friends think? Kate’s supposed to be a butt-kicking, zombie-killing genius . . . but if she can’t figure out what’s behind the freakish attacks, the victims—or what’s left of them—are going to keep piling up.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Bad Hair Day?
“My favorite thing about BAD HAIR DAY is that sometimes, when I was reading over what I’d written the day before, I made MYSELF snarf stuff out of my nose. Some of my favorite books in the world are the ones that make me laugh uncontrollably. I’m all for DEEP books about DEEP THOUGHTS (especially if they’re by Jack Handey), but sometimes laughter really is the best medicine. Especially if you have something stuck in your nose.”
View Bad Hair Day on Goodreads
Black City (Black City Chronicles)
by Elizabeth Richards
Hardcover
A dark and tender post-apocalyptic love story set in the aftermath of a bloody war
In a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war, sixteen-year-olds Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the unthinkable–they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that causes Ash’s long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they’re caught, they’ll be executed–but their feelings are too strong.
When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both their deaths.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Black City (Black City Chronicles)?
My favorite thing about Black City is: Ash! *swoon* He is my ideal book boyfriend – brooding, dangerous, sexy, vulnerable, brave… did I mention sexy? Everything started with Ash. His character popped into my head one evening, and I couldn’t shift the idea of this drug-dealing, supernatural boy, who gets a heartbeat when he meets his true love. I knew I had to tell his story, and that’s how Black City came about.
Order Black City (Black City Chronicles) on Amazon
View Black City (Black City Chronicles) on Goodreads
Sacred
by Elana K. Arnold
Hardcover
A grieving girl meets a boy with mystical powers in this passionate love story.
Growing up on Catalina Island, off the California coast, Scarlett Wenderoth has led a fairly isolated life. After her brother dies, her isolation deepens as she withdraws into herself, shutting out her friends and boyfriend. Her parents, shattered by their own sorrow, fail to notice Scarlett’s pain and sudden alarming thinness. Scarlett finds pleasure only on her horse, escaping to the heart of the island on long, solitary rides. One day, as she races around a bend, Scarlett is startled by a boy who raises his hand in warning and says one word: “Stop.”
The boy—intense, beautiful—is Will Cohen, a newcomer to the island. For reasons he can’t or won’t explain, he’s drawn to Scarlett and feels compelled to keep her safe. To keep her from wasting away. His meddling irritates Scarlett, though she can’t deny her attraction to him. As their relationship blossoms into love, Scarlett’s body slowly awakens at Will’s touch. But just when her grief begins to ebb, she makes a startling discovery about Will, a discovery he’s been grappling with himself. A discovery that threatens to force them apart. And if it does, Scarlett fears she will unravel all over again.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Sacred?
There are actually many things I loved about writing SACRED–the opportunity to indulge in my love of horses, exploring the heady sensuality of Scarlett and Will’s connection, the research into island life and Kabbalah. But stepping back from the process and revisiting SACRED as a reader, I find that the thing I love most about the book is the relationship between Scarlett and her best friend Lily Adams. I love both of these girls, and I love the way they love each other, the ways Lily tries to buoy Scarlett up as she copes with her grief. Lily is the kind of friend I always wanted to have (and she’s based in part on a friend I really did have), and she’s the kind of friend I’d like to be.
Velvet
by Mary Hooper
Hardcover
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Velvet?
I love that I found out a number of psychic tricks when I was writing VELVET. In the interests of research I attended a few mediumship evenings” at theatres – and absolutely did not hear anything which convinced me that a medium is able to communicate with dead people.
I learned how mediums worked, relying on the fact that those who attend such mediumship evenings are so keen to hear news of their dear departed that they give unwitting clues, make allowances and disregard anything they hear which doesn’t quite fit in with what they want to hear. The medium would say something like, “I am getting a message from a man on the other side whose name begins with J…John or Jake or James, perhaps” and up would shoot twenty or thirty hands wanting to claim him. The medium would then declare that the month of July, say, was very important to this person and asked if his “birthday, wedding anniversary or day of death was in July”. The odds were, one of these would be. Following this would come some very general information: he had a good sense of humour, he loved his car, he enjoyed his foreign holidays, etc. It always made me want to ask why, if the spirit could convey all this to the medium, he couldn’t tell her what his first name was.
On one such evening the medium was doing Meet and Greet in the foyer of the theatre, chatting to people generally and “welcoming them” as she put it. How convenient! No doubt she was also listening hard, noting what people were talking about and casually asking who they were hoping to get a message from. An amazing amount of information can be deduced just by having a few words with someone, noting their accent, clothing, shoes, seeing if they have well-manicured hands, if they are wearing a wedding ring or expensive jewellery and whether they are extrovert or introvert, etc. These are the sorts of things that Velvet – and George – would have been listening out for!
Following the formation of the Society for Psychical Research in 1882 every leading medium of that time, bar one, was found guilty of fraud. None were able to produce spirits under proper scientific conditions.
Before I did my research I was sceptical but very willing to be persuaded about ghosts and spirits. Now I am a die-hard disbeliever!
Fitz
by Mick Cochrane
Hardcover
Sometimes Fitz would look at himself in the mirror, an expression of pathetic eagerness on his face. He was a dog in the pound, wanting to be adopted. He’d smile. What father wouldn’t want this boy?
Fifteen-year-old Fitzgerald—Fitz, to his friends—has just learned that his father, whom he’s never met, who supports him but is not a part of his life, is living nearby. Fitz begins to follow him, watch him, study him, and on an otherwise ordinary May morning, he executes a plan to force his father, at gunpoint, to be with him.
Over the course of one spring day, Fitz and his father become real to one another. Fitz learns about his father, why he’s chosen to remain distant and what really happened between him and Fitz’s mother. And his father learns what sort of boy his son has grown up to become.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Fitz?
The favorite part of writing all my novels is probably my engagement with the characters: spending so much time with them, getting to know them. One particular aspect of FITZ I enjoyed was the music. My main character, Fitz, noodles around on the guitar and writes songs; together with a couple of friends, he forms a band. Music and song is how Fitz expresses himself.
It was fun for me writing about the music he loves and the pleasure he takes in playing with his bandmates,
Under the Bridge
by Michael Harmon
Hardcover
Tate’s younger brother Indy is probably the best skateboarder in Spokane. He’s also really smart though he couldn’t care less about school. But when Indy clashes with his father one too many times and drops out of school, it’s up to Tate to win his brother back from the seedier elements of Spokane. Can Tate convince Indy to come home, finish his high school degree, and return to skating Under the bridge with their crew?
Michael Harmon’s fast-paced and highly charged novel captures the enduring bond between brothers and their struggle for survival on the gritty streets of Spokane.
Author Question: What is your favorite thing about Under the Bridge?
Under the Bridge isprobably the most important novel I’ve ever written because, for me, it’s the truest, most sincere piece of realistic fiction writing I’ve ever done. It’s ugly and beautiful at the same time. My favorite thing is that the story takes no prisoners. It’s blunt, harsh, true to me, and regardless of a society that loves sugarcoating teen life, it portrays the grittier aspects of street skating and the realities that so many of our youth are confronted with. They don’t live with ponies and choreographed endings. They live with hard choices. That’s my favorite thing about Under the Bridge.
Order Under the Bridge on Amazon
View Under the Bridge on Goodreads
MORE RELEASES IN STORES NEXT WEEK
Reached (Matched)
by Ally Condie
Hardcover
The final thrilling part of the “New York Times” bestselling trilogy, “Reached” is the sequel to “Matched” and “Crossed” by Ally Condie. After leaving the Society and desperately searching for each other – and the Rising – Cassia and Ky have found what they were looking for, but at the cost of losing each other yet again. But nothing is as predicted, and all too soon the veil lifts and things shift once again…In the gripping conclusion to the bestselling “Matched” trilogy Cassia, Ky, and Xander return to the Society to save the one thing they have been denied for so long: the power to choose.
Order Reached (Matched) on Amazon
View Reached (Matched) on Goodreads
Renegade (The Elysium Chronicles)
by J.A. Souders
Hardcover
Since the age of three, sixteen-year-old Evelyn Winters has trained to be Daughter of the People in the underwater utopia known as Elysium. Selected from hundreds of children for her ideal genes, all her life she’s believed that everything is perfect. Her world. Her people. The Law.
But when Gavin Hunter, a Surface Dweller, accidentally stumbles into Elysium’s secluded little world, Evelyn comes to a startling realization: Everything she knows is a lie.
Her memories have been altered.
Her mind and body aren’t under her own control.
And the person she knows as Mother is a monster.
Together with Gavin she plans her escape, only to learn that her own mind is a ticking time bomb…and Mother has one last secret that will destroy them all.
Order Renegade (The Elysium Chronicles) on Amazon
View Renegade (The Elysium Chronicles) on Goodreads
Witch World
by Christopher Pike
Hardcover
Witches are real—and each of us may be one—in this all-new paranormal suspense novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christopher Pike.Heading off for a weekend in Las Vegas with her friends, Jessie Ralle has only one worry—how to make it through the road trip in the same car with her Ex, Jimmy Kelter. The guy who broke her heart five months ago when he dumped her for no reason. The guy who’s finally ready to tell her why he did it, because he wants her back.
But what Jessie doesn’t realize is that Jimmy is the least of her problems.
In Las Vegas she meets Russ, a mesmerizing stranger who shows her how to gamble, and who never seems to lose. Curious, Jessie wants to know his secret, and in response, alone in his hotel room, he teaches her a game that opens a door to another reality.
To Witch World.
Suddenly Jessie discovers that she’s stumbled into a world where some people can do the impossible, and others may not even be human. For a time she fears she’s lost her mind. Are there really witches? Is she one of them?
#1 Bestselling author Christopher Pike offers up another classic edge-of-your-seat thrill ride that keeps you guessing right until the last page.
Off Course: An A Circuit Novel
by Georgina Bloomberg and Catherine Hapka
Paperback Original
Order Off Course: An A Circuit Novel on Amazon
View Off Course: An A Circuit Novel on Goodreads
Meant to Be
by Lauren Morrill
Hardcover
Meant to be or not meant to be . . . that is the question.
It’s one thing to fall head over heels into a puddle of hazelnut coffee, and quite another to fall for the—gasp—wrong guy. Straight-A junior Julia may be accident prone, but she’s queen of following rules and being prepared. That’s why she keeps a pencil sharpener in her purse and a pocket Shakespeare in her, well, pocket. And that’s also why she’s chosen Mark Bixford, her childhood crush, as her MTB (“meant to be”).
But this spring break, Julia’s rules are about to get defenestrated (SAT word: to be thrown from a window) when she’s partnered with her personal nemesis, class-clown Jason, on a school trip to London. After one wild party, Julia starts receiving romantic texts . . . from an unknown number! Jason promises to help discover the identity of her mysterious new suitor if she agrees to break a few rules along the way. And thus begins a wild goose chase through London, leading Julia closer and closer to the biggest surprise of all: true love.
Because sometimes the things you least expect are the most meant to be.
Truancy City
by Isamu Fukui
Hardcover
As a new threat arises from outside the walls of the City, the warring Truants and Educators must join forces or be destroyed. The fate of the City is determined at last in this long-awaited conclusion to the Truancy trilogy.
View Truancy City on Goodreads
Speed of Light
by Amber Kizer
Hardcover
Meridian Sozu is a Fenestra, an angel infused human, destined to transition souls into the next world. Together with Tens Valdes, her soulmate and Protector, they’ve made a home in Indiana, making sure the dead safely enter the light and aren’t stolen by the Dark, known as the Nocti.
Upon rescuing Juliet Ambrose from her terrible childhood, Juliet has become vulnerable without her Protector and grasps at any hope to find her parents, even when it’s offered by a proven Nocti, Ms. Asura. Juliet is now faced with the horrible choice between uncovering her past and having a future.
Meanwhile, time may be running out for the hundreds of thousands preparing for the festivities surrounding the Indianapolis 500 car race. As centuries of secrets are revealed, the battles will pit Light versus Dark. Not all with survive as Meridian, Tens, and Julie join forces to try to thwart a potential tragedy.
