Showing posts with label YA young adult. Show all posts
Showing posts with label YA young adult. Show all posts

Sunday, August 17, 2014

"Dream Boy" by Madelyn Rosenberg and Mary Crockett

EXCERPT and GIVEAWAY
Dream Boy
by Madelyn Rosenberg and Mary Crockett


This book blitz and giveaway for Dream Boy is brought to you by YA Bound Book Tours.


Description
Annabelle Manning feels like she’s doing time at her high school in Chilton, Virginia. She has her friends at her lunchtime table of nobodies. What she doesn’t have are possibilities. Or a date for Homecoming. Things get more interesting at night, when she spends time with the boy of her dreams. But the blue-eyed boy with the fairytale smile is just that - a dream. Until the Friday afternoon he walks into her chemistry class.
One of friends suspects he’s an alien. Another is pretty sure it’s all one big case of deja vu. While Annabelle doesn’t know what to think, she’s willing to believe that the charming Martin Zirkle may just be her dream come true. But as Annabelle discovers the truth behind dreams - where they come from and what they mean - she is forced to face a dark reality she had not expected. More than just Martin has arrived in Chilton. As Annabelle learns, if dreams can come true, so can nightmares.

Book Video


Excerpt
I’ve always been a dreamer. Daydreams. Night dreams. Dreams of grandeur and dreams of escape. If I were an onion and you peeled back the papery outside, you’d find layer after layer of eye-watering dreams. And in the center, where there’s that little curlicue of onion heart? There’d be a puff of smoke from the dreams that burned away.
It was all just brain waves, I thought - disconnected, like the notebook that my friend Talon keeps. She draws a line down the middle of the page; on the right she writes everything she remembers about a dream, and on the left she puts notes about the stuff that’s happening in real life, things that might trigger her subconscious. Reality on one side, dreams on the other - a clear line between the two.
But it turns out there are no clear lines, just a jumble of what is and what might be. And all of it is real.
Keep reading! You can check out the first three chapters here.



Praise for the Book
"Dream Boy explores the mysterious world of dreams, where we access our deepest desires…the authors expertly weave fantasy and the real world in a perfect blend." ~ Erica Orloff, author of In Dreams
"Eerie, twisty, fast and funny, Dream Boy will forever change the way you see your dreams--and your nightmares. An exciting, imaginative look at what might happen when people from the corners of your mind suddenly show up in your real life." ~ Lois Metzger, author of A Trick of the Light
"The perfect book to add to your summer reading list. An awesome balance of love, humor and action, this new read may just be your dream come true!" ~ GirlsLife
"Hits the chick-lit and romance buttons, adding suspense and an intriguing idea as well for nicely rounded entertainment." ~ Kirkus Review
"An original, twisty paranormal romance." ~ Booklist
"Five stars... Perfect writing, perfect characters … perfect plot." ~ Paperback Wonderland
"Dream Boy skillfully and creatively tackles the common theme of good and bad dreams coming alive.... The writing is tight and well-paced, and nicely balances action with Annabelle’s character development as she tries to unravel the mysteries of... her dreams. Her teenage voice is spot on: unsure of herself, but spirited, with a sarcasm that masquerades as confidence. The plot twists and moves in unexpected yet fascinating directions." ~ The Roanoke Times



Interview with the Authors
Want to find out what Mary and Madelyn really think about each other? The authors interview each other here. (You have to watch to the end to find out who doesn't like to eat snakes in their sandwiches.)


About the Authors
Madelyn Rosenberg likes cats, avocados, and the Red Sox. Mary Crockett likes turtles, licorice, and the Yankees. Luckily they both like the weirdness of dreams (and each other) enough to write novels together. The friendship has survived three moves, six kids and countless manuscript revisions.

Madelyn Rosenberg grew up in Southwest Virginia on a great dead-end street with woods, a creek, and copious amounts of mud. After college, she moved back to Virginia, where she spent more than a decade at a daily newspaper writing stories about colorful, real-life characters. These days, she's making up characters of her own. Madelyn lives just outside of Washington, D.C.
Mary Crockett's debut novel Dream Boy is about the aftermath of dreams and the desire to figure out how you fit into the puzzle of your own life. It's also about cute guys, epic kisses, and the mystical power of a really awesome pair of shoes. A native of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Mary grew up as the youngest of six children in a family of misfits. She has worked as everything from a history museum director to a toilet seat hand model. In her other life, she's an award-winning poet, professional eavesdropper, and the person who wipes runny noses. If you tweet at her, chances are she will tweet back. Mary remains in the mountains near Salem, Virginia.

Giveaway
Enter the blitz-wide giveaway for a chance to win a $10 Amazon or B&N gift card PLUS a nifty Dream Boy T-shirt.


Book Links



Sunday, April 20, 2014

"The Six Days" by Anna Carolyn McCormally

NEW RELEASE and GIVEAWAY
The Six Days
by Anna Carolyn McCormally


The Six Days is currently on tour with Enchanted Book Promotions. The tour stops here today for an excerpt and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.


Description
Fifteen years ago, in the middle of the night, Jamie Carpenter’s mother went up to the dark lighthouse on the cliffs. She never came back.
Yesterday, Jamie had a nightmare: his little brother disappearing like their mother did, through the door of the lighthouse, a door that has never opened.
Today, the nightmare came true. Jamie’s brother is missing. And not just missing - he’s been abducted, taken through the lighthouse door into the world of magic that lays beyond.
With his best friend Nia at his side, Jamie crosses into a world he never knew existed -but Emanu is not the fairytale world of children's stories. Desperate to understand who took Danny and why, struggling to survive in a world of shadowy magic, Jamie and Nia seek the help of the Council of Witches. As they uncover more and more of Jamie’s family secrets and unknown powers, it becomes clear that Nia herself may be something more than human - and that it’s her the Council views as their biggest threat …
Swept up in a dark political game they don’t understand, burdened by magic they don’t know how to use, Jamie and Nia are going to have to learn fast if they’re going to survive Emanu and rescue Danny Carpenter. There are only six days until the gate between worlds closes again.
For good.

Excerpt
"Cal says, “I never asked you—what does it feel like for you?”
“What does what feel like?”
“The magic,” he says and all of a sudden all she can think about is their conversation on the boat, the firelight and Cal oh so close under the sky, just like he is now.
Music drifts over them from inside like a cool breeze and the air tastes of silver starlight, crisp and cold. Nia relishes the taste of it, breathes in and out slowly, her breath smoky on the night air.
“It feels like breathing,” she says, and looks up at him. “Like I was never breathing properly before, just shallow breaths, you know, something blocking the airflow. And then, in the attic, it was just switched on—and I could breathe.” She looks back at the river below them. “It feels intoxicating,” she says. “It’s like I’m drunk on breathing.”
“So you’re not,” Cal says, “angry.”
She cocks her head, waits.
“I’m angry,” he explains. “I’m so furious that this happened to us I can hardly think about anything else. Everything about our lives—it wasn’t a lie, exactly, but it wasn’t true. I wish none of this had ever happened; I’d give anything to go back.” He says this all very calmly, like he has thought very hard about how to articulate something that he is struggling to come to terms with and, in finding the words, has accepted it a little. It is marvelous, his self-awareness; he is a marvel.
“Oh Cal,” she says. She has the urge to reach out and touch his face, but she doesn’t. “I know I shouldn’t say this but we’re going to find Danny, aren’t we? We’re going to save him? So in the end I’m glad it happened, because—I won’t have to go back.” She pauses and then repeats what she’d said to Jamie, wondering what Cal’s reaction will be: “They’ll have to forgive me, won’t they? The Council?”
He doesn’t say anything; he seems to have tensed.
She says, “You think I’m horrible.”
“No,” he says, “I don’t think you’re horrible. It’s just—you never did anything wrong. I just think don’t think you have anything to prove to them.”
“It’s not about that,” she says, frowning, and Cal says, “Isn’t it? You’re not—you’re not like them.”
“And what are they like?” she asks without looking at him.
“They’re—” he says and then hesitates. “I don’t know. Heartless.”
She laughs. “And I’m not heartless?”
“No,” he says, with wonder, “No, you’re—of course you’re not. Nia,” (his voice is staid and steady voice and it irritates her; everything she loves about Cal and everything she hates about him are the same things), “I’ve known you practically my entire life, I know what you’re like and you’re...you’re the least—”
“I’m not afraid of the Call,” Nia cuts him off. “If that’s what—if it happens to me then I’m not afraid. I would be happy to go to the Council. I’d be grateful.”
He gazes at her; his look rings through the air. “Ni,” he says, and then, blushing, shakes his head."

Review
By Ben
I really really liked this book. Brilliant characters, brilliant plot-line, brilliant world-building. This is one of those books that I could not wait to come back home and continue reading.
I really hope that there will be a sequel to this book because I would love to see, if anything, what happens next with James, Nia, Danny & Cal.
Well done, Anna. Hope to hear more from you soon.

About the Author
Anna Carolyn McCormally currently manages a small used bookstore in Washington, D.C. She has a tattoo of the Deathly Hallows and blogs about YA fiction at www.giantsquidbooks.com. Her short fiction and poetry has been published in pacificREVIEW, Quantum Fairy Tales, and 3:AMMagazine.




Giveaway
Enter the giveaway for a chance to win an ebook copy of The Six Days by Anna Carolyn McCormally.


Links