Review—Parkland Speaks: Survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas Share Their Stories by Sarah Lerner

Published: January 22, 2019

Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers

Genre: Memoir—Non Fiction

Source: Print ARC

Rating: 4 

GOODREADS

Blurb:

Featuring art and writing from the students of the Parkland tragedy, this is a raw look at the events of February 14, and a poignant representation of grief, healing, and hope.

The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School share their emotional journeys that began on February 14, 2018, and continue today. This revealing and unfiltered look at teens living in the wake of tragedy is a poignant representation of grief, anger, determination, healing, and hope.

The intimate collection includes poetry, eyewitness accounts, letters, speeches, journal entries, drawings, and photographs from the events of February 14 and its aftermath. Full of heartbreaking loss, a rally cry for change, and hope for a safe future, these artistic pieces will inspire readers to reflect on their own lives and the importance of valuing and protecting the ones you love. 

Review:

Parkland Speaks is a powerful collection of short essays, poems, and thoughts on the terrible tragedy that ended in seventeen lives lost. This blog post is not political; it’s strictly a matter that’s close to my heart a human matter. Innocent lives were lost through something that could have been avoided. But again, this post isn’t about that. 

It’s about the kids that were left behind to face the aftermath of an event that changed their entire lives. This was so heartbreaking to read but an absolute necessity to be privileged enough to read the thoughts of students that were there when it happened. 

This is a book that will no doubt leave me anytime soon. Let your voice be heard no matter where you are. Your voice matters and the students from Parkland’s voices shine so bright. Let this be an inspiration to be the change in a world that desperately needs it! 

*Thank you to the publisher for providing a free copy for an honest and unbiased review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Buy the Book:

AMAZON US 

About the Author:

Sarah Lerner is a teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Blog Tour Review—White Stag (Permafrost #1) by Kara Barbieri

Publisher: Wednesday Books
Published: January 8, 2019
Genre: YA Fantasy
Source: E-ARC
Rating: 4 Stars

GOODREADS

The first book in a brutally stunning series where a young girl finds herself becoming more monster than human and must uncover dangerous truths about who she is and the place that has become her home.

As the last child in a family of daughters, seventeen-year-old Janneke was raised to be the male heir. While her sisters were becoming wives and mothers, she was taught to hunt, track, and fight. On the day her village was burned to the ground, Janneke—as the only survivor—was taken captive by the malicious Lydian and eventually sent to work for his nephew Soren.

Janneke’s survival in the court of merciless monsters has come at the cost of her connection to the human world. And when the Goblin King’s death ignites an ancient hunt for the next king, 
Soren senses an opportunity for her to finally fully accept the ways of the brutal Permafrost. But every action he takes to bring her deeper into his world only shows him that a little humanity 

isn’t bad—especially when it comes to those you care about.

Through every battle they survive, Janneke’s loyalty to Soren deepens. After dangerous truths are revealed, Janneke must choose between holding on or letting go of her last connections to a world she no longer belongs to. She must make the right choice to save the only thing keeping both worlds from crumbling.

Review-

The first book in the Perafrost series, White Stag, is deeply imaginative and dark. I was thinking this would be like Wintersong by S. Jae Jones but it takes the role much deeper and darker. Anything with goblins is a win in my book!

I think the author did a great job of making such a terrifying tale into one that I could fall in love with. There are triggers I think would be crucial to to let readers know about; such as rape, torture, and murder. 

The setting was absolutely gorgeous—I want to go inside the book and live there! The romance was good. I expect that as the books go on, the more it will grow. I look forward to that! Overall, this is a beautiful and gritty book that will no doubt be of interest to many readers. 

*Thank you to the publisher for providing a copy for an honest and unbiased review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Buy the Book:
AMAZON US
http://wednesdaybooks.com/galaxies-and-kingdom/white-stag/

About the Author:
Kara Barbieri is a twenty-two year old author with a love for the weird and mystic. She enjoys weaving ancient mythology into her stories and writing characters who are strong yet vulnerable at the same time. In her free time she trains with the same weapons her characters use, studies as a linguistic major, and generally tries her hardest not to be normal.

Spotlight ft. Excerpt—Prisoner of Night by J.R. Ward

PRISONER OF NIGHT
The Black Dagger Brotherhood series

by J. R. Ward

On Sale: January 7, 2019

Gallery Books | E-book Original

E-ISBN: 9781501195174 | $5.99

About the Book:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author J.R. Ward comes an unforgettable story of passion and vengeance in the Black Dagger Brotherhood world.​​​​​

When Ahmare’s brother is abducted, there is nothing she won’t do to get him back safely. She is unprepared, however, for the lengths she will have to go to save his life. Paired with a dangerous but enticing prisoner, she embarks on an odyssey into another world.​​​​​​
Duran, betrayed by his father, imprisoned in a dungeon for decades, has survived only because of his thirst for vengeance. He has been biding his time to escape and is shocked to find an unlikely and temporary freedom in the form of a determined young female.​

Battling against deadly forces and facing unforeseen peril, the pair are in a race to save Ahmare’s brother. As time runs out, and the unthinkable looms, even true love may not be enough to carry them through.

About the Author:

J.R. Ward is the author of more than thirty novels, including those in her #1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series. There are more than fifteen million copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published in twenty-six different countries around the world. She lives in the South with her family.

Purchase Link:https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Prisoner-of-Night/J-R-Ward/The-Black-Dagger-Brotherhood-series/9781501195174

Excerpt:

Twenty-One Years, Three Months, Six Days Ago . .

“Where is it! Goddamn you, where’s it at!” 

Duran spit blood out of his mouth and spoke over the ringing in his ears. “I’ll never tell you—”

Chalen the Conqueror swung his open palm again, nailing Duran’s lacerated face like a bat hitting a fastball. But it didn’t hurt as much as the other shit they’d been doing to him in this castle’s great room. They’d already pulled out his fingernails, broken all of his toes, and whipped his back until strips of his own flesh flapped against his ribs. At the moment, he didn’t have the strength to keep himself on his feet, but no worries there—two guards, with grips locked under his pits, were holding him up off the floor.

​

As his head flopped back into its lolling hang, he shook it to get the sweat and blood out of his eyes. In the hissing, kicking light of the hearth, the male in front of him was stocky of build and ugly of feature, an oak stump with a bulldog’s muzzle and a hungry bear’s bad fucking attitude.

​

“You are going to tell me the location.” Chalen took Duran by the throat with one of his meat hands. “And you’re going to do it now.”

​

“Sorry, not . . . a big talker—”

​The conqueror grabbed onto the lower half of Duran’s face, squeezing so hard his jaw split and the inside of his mouth was forced between the hard-and-sharp of his molars. More blood welled, spilled, fell on his bare chest.

​“Why are you protecting the male who put you here?” Chalen’s opaque eyes searched Duran’s expression as if he were trying to extrapolate a map of Maryland in the features. “All you need to do is tell me where that facility is.”

​Duran waited for that grip to release. When it did, he spit more blood out. “I’m not . . . protecting him.”

​“Then what are you doing?”

​“Making sure you don’t cheat me of what’s mine.” Duran smiled, aware he must look deranged. “You kill him . . . I don’t get to.”

​Chalen crossed his strong-man arms over his barrel chest. He was dressed in weapons, whatever clothes he had on underneath the holsters of guns and knives largely hidden by metal. No daggers, though. He’d never been Black Dagger Brotherhood material and not just because he was a mutt according to his lineage: Even among black market thieves, there was a code of conduct.

​Not for Chalen. He had no code. Not in the Old Country, and not during his last century here in the New World. 

There was only one male who was worse. 

“I will break you,” Chalen said in a low voice. “And I will enjoy it.” 

Duran laughed in a wheeze. “You have no idea what I’ve already been through—” 

Chalen swung that palm wide again, the crack so heavy Duran lost his vision, everything going checkerboard. And then there was a drop in blood pressure, his brain emptying of oxygen, floaty disassociation riding in, a foggy savior buffering the suffering. 

The sound of chains moving and gears shifting brought him back to reality. A section of the sweaty stone wall rose by inches, the great weight ascending like a gate, revealing a corridor . . . 

Revealing a male who was naked but for a black hood that covered his head. 

“I will make you pray for death,” Chalen said. “And when you give me what I need, you will think back to this moment. When you could have saved yourself from so much.” 

Duran exhaled in a gurgle. His body was on fire, the pain burning through his veins, turning him into a semi-living, kind-of-breathing, sort-of-conscious incubator for agony. 

But fuck Chalen. 

“Do what you will,” he mumbled. “I’m not going to give you a goddamn thing.” 

“I will make you wish you were never born.” 

As the hooded male came forward, Duran was dragged over and slammed face-first down onto a table, his torso bent parallel to the floor. Turning his face to the side, he smelled the spoiled meat and rancid fat embedded in the fibers of the planks. 

“Already there, asshole.”

Blog Tour Excerpt—Analiese Rising by Brenda Drake

Analiese Rising

By Brenda Drake

ISBN: 978-1640635081

1/8/19

American Gods meets the Da Vinci Code in ANALIESE RISING (Entangled; 01/08/19), a suspense-filled novel by New York Times bestselling author Brenda Drake. This first book in a new fantasy series offers a new take on the paranormal romance genre—with a mythological spin. Gone are vampires and werewolves; in are descendants of the God of Death.

Brenda Drake is known for creating addictive, entertaining series with strong female characters (Library Jumpers and The Fated) and her fans will not be disappointed.

ABOUT ANALIESE RISING: When a stranger gives Analiese Jordan a list of names before he dies, the last thing she expects to see is her own on it. Not. Cool. Her search for answers leads to the man’s grandson, Marek, who has dangerous secrets of his own. Both are determined to unlock the mystery of the list.

But the truth is deadly. Analiese is a descendant of the God of Death, known as a Riser, with the power to raise the dead and control them. Finding out she has hidden powers? Cool. Finding out she turns corpses into killers? No, thank you.

Now the trail plants her and Marek in the middle of a war between gods who apparently want to raise an army of the Risen, and Analiese must figure out how to save the world—from herself.

Excerpt: 

The tiny scalpel shakes as I ready to make the cut. My stomach lurches as if it wants to leave my body and walk out the door. I don’t want to do this. It’s not right. The instrument slips from my hand and clatters onto the table. 

“I can’t.” I pull off the gloves, drop them beside the tray, and push the goggles up to my forehead. “This is just too inhumane. Poor frog never hurt anyone. I don’t get why we can’t do virtual dissections like they do at Grant.” 

“Ha!” That smug look is back on his face. “Do you concede, then?”

My eyes go back to the frog. Sadness deflates my soul the way a balloon loses air. Had it been hopping in a pond somewhere green and lush, minding its own business, searching for bugs to eat before the net caught it?

 Had it been scared, struggling against the cords to get out? Had it been docile once it realized there was no
 hope? No escape.

A girl’s squeal sounds behind me just before Rod stumbles and hits my back, pushing me forward. My bare palm lands on the frog, its body cold, firm, and lifeless. A shudder runs down my spine, and I pull back my hand as if I’ll catch a disease. 

“Eww.” I push Rod away. “Be careful.”

“Oh sorry,” he says, a laugh hanging in his voice. 

Mrs. Cryer’s eyes shift in our direction. “Mr. Stone, settle down, or you’ll spend lunch in the office.”

Rod returns to his table, Maggie and Sofia’s stifled laughs greeting him.

Dalton shoots out of his chair. “Did you see that? It moved.”

I snap back around. The frog is as still as a statue in the tray. “It did not. Stop doing that.”

“Doing what? I swear it—”

The frog’s eyes pop open, and it struggles against the pins holding its limbs down. A gasp punches from my chest, and I scoot back. This time it’s me bumping into Rod. 

“Hey,” he protests, shoving me back toward my table.

“What is going on over there?” Mrs. Cryer’s commanding voice stills the class. 

This can’t be real.

ABOUT BRENDA DRAKE: Brenda Drake grew up the youngest of three children, an Air Force brat, and the continual new kid at school. Her fondest memories growing up is of her eccentric, Irish grandmother's animated tales, which gave her a strong love for storytelling. So it was only fitting that she would choose to write stories with a bend toward the fantastical. When she's not writing or hanging out with her family, she haunts libraries, bookstores, and coffee shops, or reads someplace quiet and not at all exotic (much to her disappointment).

Other blogs on the tour:

Dec. 27- https://agingerlyreview.wordpress.com (Excerpt 1)

http://www.velarisreads.wordpress.com (Excerpt 2)

Dec. 28- http://thelovelybooksbookblog.blogspot.com (Excerpt 3)

https://indecisiveopinions.blogspot.com (Excerpt 4)

Dec. 29- http://www.ohheybooks.com (Excerpt 5)

http://pagesbetween.blogspot.com (Excerpt 6)

Dec. 30- https://confessionsofayareader.wordpress.com/   (Excerpt 7)

http://chaptersthroughlife.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1 (Excerpt 8)

Dec. 31- http://www.travelsnreads.com (Excerpt 9)

Http://smadasbooksmack.blogspot.com (Excerpt 10)

Jan. 1- https://instagram.com/live.laugh.love.library (Excerpt 11)

http://booksandmakeup.blogspot.com (Excerpt 12)

Jan. 2- http://cantstopwontstopbooks.wordpress.com (Excerpt 13)

http://taylorfenner.blogspot.com  (Excerpt 14)

Jan. 3- https://carriesbookreviews.com/ (Excerpt 15)

http://omgreads.com/blog/ (Excerpt 16)

Jan. 4- http://adreamwithindream.blogspot.com (Excerpt 17)

https://bookishfriendsandfelinefancies.wordpress.com (Excerpt 18)

Jan. 5- https://booklovinmamas.net (Excerpt 19)

https://twirlingbookprincess.com/ (Excerpt 20)

Jan. 6-  http://www.literaryme.net/ (Excerpt 21)

http://www.kindlykatey.com (Excerpt 22)

Jan. 7- https://kristinsbooks.wordpress.com/?ref=spelling(Excerpt 23)

Blog Tour Review—The Christmasaurus by Tom Fletcher

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers

Published: October 23, 2018

Genre: Middle School 

Source: Finished Copy

Rating: 5 Stars

GOODREADS

Blurb:

Why settle for a pony or a puppy for Christmas when you could have a dinosaur? A rollicking adventure from singer-songwriter and YouTuber Tom Fletcher.

Once upon a time--long, long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth--an egg rolled away from its mother and landed in the ocean, where it froze solid and stayed peacefully for thousands of years. Then one day Santa and his elves discover the frozen egg, and Santa sits on it to see if it will hatch. But he can't guess what's inside. . . . A dinosaur!

Meanwhile, a young boy named William Trundle has only ever wished for one thing for Christmas: a dinosaur! So when Santa accidentally gives William the real Christmasaurus instead of a stuffed replica, it's the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER! Until an evil man known as the Hunter decides a dinosaur will be the perfect addition to his collection.

A wild and hilarious adventure ensues. An instant Christmas classic!

Review:

Oh. My. Goodness. This is probably one of the best and most imaginative children’s books I’ve read in a long time. It was absolute joy from the very first page until the very last to read. I love when books do that! I’ll admit I’ve never heard of the author until I was asked to be part of the blog tour for The Christmasaurus. 

I didn’t waste any time whatsoever going and buying the other books Fletcher has written. His mind is genius and I loved his take on Santa and Christmas. Bonus points for including dinosaurs. I believe with more books out there like those of Fletcher’s; more children will want to flock to reading. After all, reading is very essential to success. I read it in a book, so it must be true!

William Trundle is a boy whose only ever wanted one thing for Christmas—a dinosaur. Not a toy dinosaur either...a REAL ONE! The adventure that awaits the reader is magical. Magic is totally real and if there’s one thing to learn from this book, it’s to dream big. 

This is one families should have at Christmas time reading around a fire. And as the author himself suggests; prepare a plate of cookies and some hot cocoa for the occasion. I can see this story becoming a classic everywhere. It has the highest of recommendations from me!

*Thank you to the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

BUY AMAZON US

BUY AMAZON UK

About the Author:

Written by McFly band member, YouTuber, and UK celebrity TOM FLETCHER (he has over 1+ MILLION FOLLOWERS on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube), THE CHRISTMASAURUS is sure to become an instant Christmas classic.

Blog Tour Guest Post ft. Giveaway—A Dreadful Fairy Book Written by Jon Etter

Publisher’s Synopsis: Shade the sprite is dreadful at being the perfect fairy. After her treehouse burns to the ground, Shade embarks on a quest, albeit with rather questionable companions, to find a place her outré self can finally fit in—a place of companionship and comfort and, most importantly, positively filled with books. When fantastic ruffians, swindlers, and a pack of ruthless Unseelie hunters threaten to halt her at every turn, can Shade survive the dreadful journey and find a destination she can truly call home?

Ages 9-12 | Publisher: Amberjack Publishing | November 20, 2018 | ISBN-13: 978-1948705141

Fairy Tales and How They Influenced A Dreadful Fairy Book

Looking back on my childhood, I’ve come to believe myself the product of the most wonderful and benevolent negligence. At age six, my parents started letting me watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus with them, thus making me constitutionally unable to take much of anything seriously. I don’t remember a single time when the good librarians at Forrest Public Library questioned a single book I ever checked out, even when a parent was nowhere in sight and my choices were all but guaranteed to cause nightmares.  And my first grade art teacher, having confirmed that my drawing was indeed a guillotine (complete with basket filled with severed heads), replied with a nod and a nonplussed “Okay” rather than referring me to the school psychologist (if we even had one back then).

​My Grandma Ruth, however, is probably the one we have to blame for A Dreadful Fairy Book. Whenever I spent the day at her house, she would read to me. Sometimes it was Edgar Allan Poe (“You share a birthday with him, so you should know his work,” she explained to me at age 5 before kindly terrorizing me with “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”), but more often than not it was with fairy tales. Not the sanitized, Disney-fied, tasteless pap that passed for fairy tales in the early ‘80s. The good, old, savory stuff. Tales of tricksters and shapeshifters, blessings and curses, bewitchments and bafflements, schemes and thefts and adductions and patricide, matricide, infanticide, and just about every other –cide you could think of. In the stories that she read to me, Little Red Riding
 Hood and Grandma ended up in the wolf’s belly (later to be cut out of it) instead of a cozy little closet, helpful little birds were sweet enough to peck the eyes out of Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters, and Jack killed more than just one giant—and in more inventive and gruesome ways than chopping down a beanstalk.

​As I grew older, stories on Grandma’s lap fell by the wayside but the fairy stories remained, thanks to that perennial corrupter of young imaginations: the local library. There lurking in the 398s of the Dewey Decimal system were the elves, dwarves, kobolds, grindylows, pixies, redcaps, and other fairy folk, lovingly compiled by folklorists like Katharine Briggs, ready to snatch up a curious reader like an untended baby from its crib. These were some of my most regular companions as I grew up there in those wonderfully musty stacks.

​And so when I decided in the spring of 2016 to write a fairy book to amuse my children (and, to be honest, myself), I went back to the source. I pillaged the shelves of my local library and hopped into the first fairy circle I could find, careful to consume no food nor drink and to accept no gifts to guarantee my safe return. There were all my old friends and many new ones I had never met before—cowlugs, skrikers, and the fearsome nuckelavee to name but a few—all of whom seemed ready for a romp. Sure, some of them got a bit deconstructed and fractured and made just plain silly along the way (fortunately, your average fairy seems to have a pretty good sense of humor), but many if not most were brought to the page just as they were. And when it came time to slap a name—names being, as we all know, extremely powerful things—on my fairyland, it didn’t make much sense to call it anything other than what the Scots have always called it: Elfame.

​Now I know at the beginning of this post I highlighted my early love of the more sanguine elements of traditional fairy and folk tales, which, if you are kind enough to read my little book, you’ll no doubt notice are largely absent (it is a comedy for kids, after all, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t do a Game of Thrones-esque culling of my characters). That wasn’t what left the greatest impression on me as a child. It was the morality of fairy tales. Granted, I never much cared for the ones that stressed obedience to one’s elders (and care even less for those now!) and always thought those maidens would be a great deal better off if they could—or, more accurately, were allowed to—save themselves a little more often (perhaps fencing lessons and self-esteem workshops are in order), but the others? Stories where wickedness is always revealed and punished? Stories where acts of kindness and mercy are always rewarded? Stories where being clever always trumps being big and strong and cruel? Those are the stories I loved, still love,always will love, and it’s those stories that I like to think are embedded deep in the DNA of my book.

​For all the fun that it pokes, I really believe that A Dreadful Fairy Book is more of a traditional fairy story than not. If it breaks completely from any traditions, it would be from more modern ones that call for children’s stories to be simple and bland and as safe as an unloaded Nerf gun bundled up in bubble wrap. Those traditions I would kindly ask to go see if the oven is hot enough. Gretel there would be delighted to give you a hand…

OFFICIAL LINKS

https://www.jonetter.com

https://www.amberjackpublishing.com/a-dreadful-fairy-book

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmberjackPublishing/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/amberjackpub

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amberjackpublishing/

GIVEAWAY

Enter to win a copy of A Dreadful Fairy Book by Jon Etter!

Ten (10) winners receive:

• A bound galley copy of A Dreadful Fairy Book

Giveaway begins November 13, 2018, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends December , 2018, at 11:59 P.M. PST.

Giveaway open to residents of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia who are 13 and older.

Amberjack Publishing is responsible for prize fulfillment.

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