Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Sisters of Blood & Spirit ~ Kady Cross (earc) review [@alterkates @harlequinteen]

Sisters of Blood and Spirit (#1)
Harlequin Teen
March 31, 2015
288 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from TBD/or Amazon

Wren Noble is dead—she was born that way. Vibrant, unlike other dead things, she craves those rare moments when her twin sister allows her to step inside her body and experience the world of the living.

Lark Noble is alive but often feels she belongs in the muted Shadow Lands—the realm of the dead. Known as the crazy girl who talks to her dead sister, she doesn't exactly fit in with the living, though a recent suicide attempt and time in a psych ward have proved to her she's not ready to join her sister in the afterlife.

Now the guy who saved Lark's life needs her to repay the favor. He and his friends have been marked for death by the malevolent spirit of a vicious and long-dead serial killer, and the twins—who should know better than to mess with the dead—may be their only hope of staying alive.
So, I love the movie Casper and am almost always looking for a ghost story I can love in the same way and/or where I can find some similarities between the two stories. Kady Cross's Sisters of Blood and Spirit both is that and is so much more. Sort of Casper mixed with Supernatural or Shutter and I love it.

Wren Noble is a ghost. Lark Noble, her twin sister, is alive. Only Lark can see Wren and while she knows Wren is real enough that no one's been able to convince her she's an imaginary friend it hasn't left her looking normal in anyone's eyes. She's the freak that talks to her dead sister.


An attempt to join Wren nearly succeeded, nearly killed Lark. But someone saved her. Someone who now needs her - and maybe Wren's - help.Wren may be a 'nice' ghost but not all of them are and it's a very dangerous one Lark must now deal with to save them.


Sisters of Blood and Spirit has ghosts, it has sisters, it has that awkward/weird/misunderstood new girl, it has romance, it has some great boys, it has sweet girls and catty girls, potential friendships and some self discovery. I really do love it.

The relationship between Lark and Wren is unique and a fantastic foundation for the story. One is dead and one alive but they are still, absolutely, part of each other's lives and worlds. How that has all effected Lark's life is a perfect setup for how she views anyone trying to be nice to her, to befriend her. Her reticence to accept them, accept their motives, gives us time to get to know the other characters. We are able to see what they think of Lark - of Wren.

All of this while they battle a ghost who was - who is? - a serial killer. The danger uncovers things that may have otherwise stayed hidden, reveals things about the characters and who they are - or maybe should be - to each other.

I love the relationships in Sisters of Blood and Spirit, some were more standard and similar to something from another novel, yet when you add in Wren's presence, her inclusion in Lark's life, everything becomes different and fresh. I really enjoyed seeing the progression, the growth, of Lark's character. Who she was when the novel started made perfect sense with what her life has been - seeing/hearer ghost sister along with how everyone has reacted to that over the years - but the events of the story and the introduction of the other characters really impact her.

Wren has her own development as well. We don't learn quite as much as I may have liked about the Shadowlands, the ghosty land she also lives - but I think that really fit the story and her character. As she discovers more about it and herself, I hope readers will also learn more in the next book(s).

I can't wait to see where the girls' characters go in the next book, what happens with their relationships, friendships and their sibling relationship, as well. I'm also looking forward to more spirit involvement. Kady Cross came up with something very creative in Lark and Wren and I think we're only beginning to see all that the sisters can and will do (in the human world, in the spirit world, for themselves, for each other, for those they care about).

I am so very much looking forward to the continuation of this series!





Top Ten Tuesday


This week's Ten: Ten Books You Recently Added To Your To-Be-Read List

This may not be a top ten but it is definitely ten of top books I've recently added.


Backlash by Sarah Darer Littman

He says: You're an awful person.
He says: What makes you think I would ever ask you out?
He says: The world would be a better place without you in it.

Lara just got told off on Facebook.


She thought that Christian liked her, that he was finally going to ask her to his school's homecoming dance. They've been talking online for weeks, so what's with the sudden change? And where does he get off saying horrible things on her wall? Even worse - are they true?

It's been a long time since Lara's felt this bad, this depressed, this ugly. She's worked really hard to become pretty and happy - and make new friends after what happened in middle school.

Bree used to be best friends with overweight, depressed Lara, but constantly listening to Lara's issues got to be too much. Secretly, Bree's glad Christian called Lara out. Lara's not nearly as amazing as people think. But no one realized just how far Christian's harsh comments would push Lara. Not even Bree.

As online life collides with real life, things spiral out of control, and not just for Lara. Because when the truth starts to come together, the backlash is even more devastating than anyone could have ever imagined

Dream Things True by Marie Marquardt
A modern-day Romeo and Juliet story in which a wealthy Southern boy falls in love with an undocumented Mexican girl and together they face perils in their hostile Georgia town.

Evan, a soccer star and the nephew of a conservative Southern Senator, has never wanted for much -- except a functional family. Alma has lived in Georgia since she was two-years-old, excels in school, and has a large, warm Mexican family. Never mind their differences, the two fall in love, and they fall hard. But when ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) begins raids on their town, Alma knows that she needs to tell Evan her secret. There's too much at stake. But how to tell her country-club boyfriend that she’s an undocumented immigrant? That her whole family and most of her friends live in the country without permission. What follows is a beautiful, nuanced, well-paced exploration of the complications of immigration, young love, defying one’s family, and facing a tangled bureaucracy that threatens to completely upend two young lives.
Embers (The Wings of War #1) by Karen Ann Hopkins
There are descendants of angels walking among us. Ember is one of them.

KIRKUS REVIEWS: “An impending apocalypse provides a compelling backdrop for romance in this page-turning first installment of a new YA series. Hopkins (Lamb to the Slaughter, 2014, etc.) expertly weaves her plotlines together in this compulsively readable teen romance story…Hopkins delivers many successful elements of young-adult romance—appealing lead characters, high-voltage chemistry, repressed sexuality—which will win her ardent followers. A paranormal YA tale that’s highly recommended for fans of the Twilight series; move over, Bella and Edward, there’s a new set of kids on the block.”

Embers is an epic paranormal adventure/romance about a seventeen year old girl who discovers that she's immune to fire and any other injury when she’s in a horrific car crash that kills her parents. Following a violent episode with her aunt's boyfriend, Ember flees Ohio to live with an old relative in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Ember's exuberance at escaping a bad home life soon turns to trepidation when she learns that she's a Watcher, a descendant of angels. While Ember is instructed about her heritage and the powers that go along with it, she strikes up friendships with two teenagers who live in a frightening walled compound in the forest. Inexplicitly drawn to one of the young men in particular, an impossible romance develops. But it's cut short when Ember discovers that her new friends are fighting on the opposite side of a war that's been raging between two factions of Watchers for thousands of years. When the compound’s inhabitants threaten the townspeople, Ember takes action, sealing her fate in the ancient battle of good versus evil, and the grayness in between. Ember is up to the challenge, until she realizes that she isn’t only fighting for the lives of the locals and the souls of her new friends. She may be one of the few champions willing to make a stand for all of mankind as the rapture approaches and the end of days begin.

Embers is the first novel in the dark and gritty YA paranormal romance series, The Wings of War.
Monster by Victoria Schwab (no cover yet)


Monster tells the story of a teen boy and girl who never should have met, since their fathers are rival leaders of a divided city where violence breeds literal monsters. Conspiracies and betrayals send the teens on the run for their lives, but together, they could become each other's worst nightmare. Publication is planned for 2016.


How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie DeBartolo 


Written in her wonderfully honest, edgy, passionate and often hilarious voice, Tiffanie DeBartolo tells the story of Eliza Caelum, a young music journalist, and Paul Hudson, a talented songwriter and lead singer of the band Bananafish. Eliza's reverence for rock is equaled only by Paul's, and the two fall wildly in love.

When Bananafish is signed by a big corporate label, and Paul is on his way to becoming a major rock star, Eliza must make a heartbreaking decision that leads to Paul's sudden disappearance and a surprise knock-your-socks-off ending.






Nowhere But Here (Thunder Road #1) by Katie McGarry
An unforgettable new series from acclaimed author Katie McGarry about taking risks, opening your heart and ending up in a place you never imagined possible.

Seventeen-year-old Emily likes her life the way it is: doting parents, good friends, good school in a safe neighborhood. Sure, she's curious about her biological father—the one who chose life in a motorcycle club, the Reign of Terror, over being a parent—but that doesn't mean she wants to be a part of his world. But when a reluctant visit turns to an extended summer vacation among relatives she never knew she had, one thing becomes clear: nothing is what it seems. Not the club, not her secret-keeping father and not Oz, a guy with suck-me-in blue eyes who can help her understand them both.

Oz wants one thing: to join the Reign of Terror. They're the good guys. They protect people. They're…family. And while Emily—the gorgeous and sheltered daughter of the club's most respected member—is in town, he's gonna prove it to her. So when her father asks him to keep her safe from a rival club with a score to settle, Oz knows it's his shot at his dream. What he doesn't count on is that Emily just might turn that dream upside down.

No one wants them to be together. But sometimes the right person is the one you least expect, and the road you fear the most is the one that leads you home.

Spinning Starlight by R.C. Lewis (okay, this is definitely one of the top ones)
Sixteen-year-old heiress and paparazzi darling Liddi Jantzen hates the spotlight. But as the only daughter in the most powerful tech family in the galaxy, it's hard to escape it. So when a group of men show up at her house uninvited, she assumes it's just the usual media-grubs. That is, until shots are fired.

Liddi escapes, only to be pulled into an interplanetary conspiracy more complex than she ever could have imagined. Her older brothers have been caught as well, trapped in the conduits between the planets. And when their captor implants a device in Liddi's vocal cords to monitor her speech, their lives are in her hands: One word and her brothers are dead.

Desperate to save her family from a desolate future, Liddi travels to another world, where she meets the one person who might have the skills to help her bring her eight brothers home-a handsome dignitary named Tiav. But without her voice, Liddi must use every bit of her strength and wit to convince Tiav that her mission is true. With the tenuous balance of the planets deeply intertwined with her brothers' survival, just how much is Liddi willing to sacrifice to bring them back?

Haunting and mesmerizing, this retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans strings the heart of the classic with a stunning, imaginative world as a star-crossed family fights for survival in this companion to Stitching Snow.

The Detour by S.A. Bodeen
On her way to a writer’s conference, a bestselling teenage author takes a detour that has been deliberately set up by her biggest fans—a mother and daughter who kidnap her.

Livvy Flynn is a big deal—she’s a New York Times-bestselling author whose YA fiction has sold all over the world. She’s rich, she’s famous, she’s gorgeous, and she’s full of herself.

When she’s invited to an A-list writer’s conference, she decides to accept so she can have some time to herself. She’s on a tight deadline for her next book, and she has no intention of socializing with the other industry people at the conference.

And then she hits the detour. Before she knows it, her brand new car is wrecked, she’s hurt, and she’s tied to a bed in a nondescript shack in the middle of nowhere. A woman and her apparently manic daughter have kidnapped her. And they have no intention of letting her go.

Untangle
by Calia Read

Unofficial Blurb

They say my name is Victoria.
They say I'm twenty-seven.
They say I've been in this psych ward for over a year.
They say my husband is dead, and that my daughter is too.
But.
Wes visits me almost every night, and I hold my daughter every day.
They say, they say, they say...
I say, it's time to untangle the past, and uncover the truth






The Weight of Feathers by Anne-Marie McLemore
For twenty years, the Palomas and the Corbeaus have been rivals and enemies, locked in an escalating feud for over a generation. Both families make their living as traveling performers in competing shows—the Palomas swimming in mermaid exhibitions, the Corbeaus, former tightrope walkers, performing in the tallest trees they can find.

Lace Paloma may be new to her family’s show, but she knows as well as anyone that the Corbeaus are pure magia negra, black magic from the devil himself. Simply touching one could mean death, and she's been taught from birth to keep away. But when disaster strikes the small town where both families are performing, it’s a Corbeau boy, Cluck, who saves Lace’s life. And his touch immerses her in the world of the Corbeaus, where falling for him could turn his own family against him, and one misstep can be just as dangerous on the ground as it is in the trees.

Beautifully written, and richly imaginative, The Weight of Feathers is an utterly captivating young adult novel by a talented new voice.



So those are my ten . . . Please leave a comment and let me know what books you've recently added to your to-read list and/or link me to your Top Ten Tuesday post!

Monday, March 30, 2015

At the Water's Edge ~ Sara Gruen (arc) review [@SaraGruen @SPIEGELandGRAU @randomhouse]

At the Water's Edge
Spiegel & Grau
March 31, 2015
368 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from TBD/or Amazon


In her stunning new novel, Gruen returns to the kind of storytelling she excelled at in Water for Elephants: a historical timeframe in an unusual setting with a moving love story. Think Scottish Downton Abbey.

After embarrassing themselves at the social event of the year in high society Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve of 1942, Maddie and Ellis Hyde are cut off financially by Ellis’s father, a former army Colonel who is already embarrassed by his son’s inability to serve in WWII due to his being colorblind. To Maddie’s horror, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and when he finds it he will restore his father’s name and return to his father’s good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war. Each day the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. And Maddie, now alone in a foreign country, must begin to figure out who she is and what she wants. The novel tells of Maddie’s social awakening: to the harsh realities of life, to the beauties of nature, to a connection with forces larger than herself, to female friendship, and finally, to love.

I have already been asked if I thought At the Water's Edge was as good as Water for Elephants. While I don't think I remember Water for Elephants enough - or not clearly enough, in detail - to say for certain, I do think I liked At the Water's Edge more. (And I did love Water for Elephants.)

Having said that, I was worried for a while that I was not really going to like this book I had such high hopes for. The characters were kind of irritating. The thing they reminded me of the most was that group of people (kids, teens, whatever) that are so loud and obnoxious you just want to be anywhere but there - but you know they think they're amazing. Maddie, Ellis and Hank were just so enthralled by themselves.  I kind of couldn't stand them.

Once the story got to Scotland, though, I fell in love. The author somehow makes a place - in the midst of World War II, with just about everything but porridge rationed, even the threat of bombs - enthralling, captivating and a place you're going to fall in love with.

The Scottish characters - their brusqueness, their lack of being awed by the American trio - are so real and honest. They're refreshing and a great (as well as much needed) counter to Maddie, Ellis and Hank.

At the Water's Edge is a "story of a privileged young woman’s moral and sexual awakening," (per here and arc) so you know Maddie's character is going to change. It was that promise that had me looking forward to what was to come, even when I didn't like her, at first - a promise very much fulfilled.

The novel does have a strong (sweet, lovely) romance, but it was really the growth of Maddie's character from that elitist girl in the beginning to who she is at the end that made for such a remarkable book. The romance is a part of that, but so are numerous other things. How she 'wakes up' and begins to see things in a new light was very well done, realistic, believable and relateable. (I even loved the beginning I had almost disliked because of how well it then fit into the story and with the characters. It was beyond necessary.)

When you add in the Loch Ness monster, Ellis's family history with the creature, the time period, the setting and the characters, I absolutely love At the Water's Edge.  Don't miss out on this incredible story.





Other books you might also enjoy: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and A Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott





arc received thanks to the publisher

Cover Characteristic [@Sugar_and_Snark]

This is a new meme hosted by Sugar & Snark. It came about when Sugar was wondering which cover to use for her #70 Cover of the Week post. Sugar kept on thinking of more than one, and they all seemed to have a theme/characteristic. So she decided to switch things up a bit!

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favorite covers with that characteristic. If you want to join in and share your 5 favorite covers with the weeks particular characteristic, then just make a post, grab the meme picture (or make your own) and leave your URL in Linky (so we can visit).

You don’t even need to participate, just stopping by and saying hi would be great! Don’t forget to stop by the other participants!

This Week's Characteristic: Pink Covers
(covers linked to Goodreads)






my favorite:

The Probability of Miracles is my favorite more for how it looks in person than for how it looks in the jpeg. It is so bright and shiny and pink, it's a happy cover and I love it.


I noticed that there are a lot of pink covers, if there's one I didn't include that you love, please leave a comment and tell me! If you did your own Cover Characteristic post, link me to it.

Friday, March 27, 2015

Friday Finds [@adailyrhythm]

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased).
Spinning Starlight by RC Lewis 


Backlash by Sarah Darer Littman


Embers (Wings of War #1) by Karen Ann Hopkins

Never Gonna Tell by Sarah M Ross

Psychomanteum by Laurel Veil

Untangle by Calia Read


Please leave a comment and let me know what books you 'found' this week and.or if you've read any of these!

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Thursday Thirteen


thursday-13


Thirteen Authors Named Ann/Anne/Anna/Annabel

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others' comments. It’s easy, and fun!

Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Waiting On Wednesday [@MissDahlELama @SpencerHillP]

Waiting On Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine


My pick for this week:
UNDER THE LIGHTS (Daylight Falls #2) by Dahlia Adler
Josh Chester loves being a Hollywood bad boy, coasting on his good looks, his parties, his parents' wealth, and the occasional modeling gig. But his laid-back lifestyle is about to change. To help out his best friend, Liam, he joins his hit teen TV show, Daylight Falls...opposite Vanessa Park, the one actor immune to his charms. (Not that he's trying to charm her, of course.) Meanwhile, his drama-queen mother blackmails him into a new family reality TV show, with Josh in the starring role. Now that he's in the spotlight—on everyone's terms but his own—Josh has to decide whether a life as a superstar is the one he really wants.

Vanessa Park has always been certain about her path as an actor, despite her parents' disapproval. But with all her relationships currently in upheaval, she's painfully uncertain about everything else. When she meets her new career handler, Brianna, Van is relieved to have found someone she can rely on, now that her BFF, Ally, is at college across the country. But as feelings unexpectedly evolve beyond friendship, Van's life reaches a whole new level of confusing. And she'll have to choose between the one thing she's always loved...and the person she never imagined she could.

published June 30th by Spencer Hill Contemporary

add to your Goodreads shelf // pre-order from Book Depo // or Amazon


Why?

I am currently reading the first Daylight Falls book, Behind the Scenes, and I love knowing that there's going to be more to that world and those characters.

I'm loving Behind the Scenes so I'm looking forward to seeing how the first book ends and what happens to the story and to the characters in the second book!




That's my pick for this week, what's yours? Tell me in the comments and/or link me to your own post!

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Top Ten Tuesday


This week's Ten: Top 10 Books From My Childhood (Or teen years) That I Would Love To Revisit

Matilda by Roald Dahl, illustrated by Quentin Blake
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D Taylor
My Antonia by Willa Cather
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer
A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

These are all - or almost all - books I read in middle school. I remember most of the stories but I'd love to reread them and live those tales again.


Please leave a comment and link me to your own Top Ten Tuesday post or let me know books you'd like to revisit!

Monday, March 23, 2015

The Walls Around Us ~ Nova Ren Suma (earc) review [@AlgonquinYR @novaren]

The Walls Around Us
Algonquin Young Readers
March 24, 2015
336 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from TBD/or Amazon

"Ori’s dead because of what happened out behind the theater, in the tunnel made out of trees. She’s dead because she got sent to that place upstate, locked up with those monsters. And she got sent there because of me.”

The Walls Around Us
is a ghostly story of suspense told in two voices—one still living and one long dead. On the outside, there’s Violet, an eighteen-year-old dancer days away from the life of her dreams when something threatens to expose the shocking truth of her achievement. On the inside, within the walls of a girls’ juvenile detention center, there’s Amber, locked up for so long she can’t imagine freedom. Tying these two worlds together is Orianna, who holds the key to unlocking all the girls’ darkest mysteries.

We hear Amber’s story and Violet’s, and through them Orianna’s, first from one angle, then from another, until gradually we begin to get the whole picture—which is not necessarily the one that either Amber or Violet wants us to see.

Nova Ren Suma tells a supernatural tale of guilt and innocence, and what happens when one is mistaken for the other.

After reading Imaginary Girls and  Dani Noir (aka Fade Out), I thought I knew what I was getting into with The Walls Around Us. Yeah, no. The Walls Around Us is much more intense than I remember either of those being.

Author Nova Ren Suma somehow takes the world of ballet - like serious ballet, the I-want-to-go-to-Julliard-and-be-a-ballerina ballet not the six-year-old in a tutu ballet - and life in a juvenile detention center and makes them seem like the perfect combination.

Violet is counting the days until she leaves for Julliard. She's more than ready to go, with her things packed, her plans made. She isn't running away from the past and what happened, but neither can she forget it.

Amber is serving a sentence in the juvenile detention center. Even if some of the other girls are counting the days, weeks or months until their release, Amber knows there isn't much point in that for her.

When one strange night brings the two together, we begin to see how they are connected.

Orianna.

Through Amber's story and then Violet's we get Orianna's story. It's through her story that we learn some truths about the other girls, about Amber and about Violet.

The Walls Around Us is a magical, confusing, intense story that is guaranteed to get into your head. We know from almost the very start of the book when the two girls, Amber and Violet, cross paths but the temporal when of that, the how and what it all means remain a mystery. We also know they have their secrets, their lies, even. But as Violet herself makes clear and Amber tells us several times in regards to the girls in the detention center, the truth may be relative.

Or whatever they want it to be.

It's hard (for me, at least) to really review The Walls Around Us without including spoilers. I got involved with each girl's story as it was being told but kept realizing I had no idea how they overlapped and what the ending was going to be.


It is definitely a really good read and how it all pieces together, how each girl's story plays its part and who each of them really is are beyond what I could imagine. I never had any connection with Violet's character. I didn't like her, that was for sure, but also stayed more disconnected from her character. 

The ending, even as it wasn't what I was expecting, fits the story . . . and poses some real questions.

Even though this wasn't a book I loved, it's still one I'm going to recommend and I really cannot wait to see what Nova Ren Suma writes next.







digital copy received for review from publisher, via NetGalley

Cover Characteristic [@Sugar_and_Snark]

This is a new meme hosted by Sugar & Snark. It came about when Sugar was wondering which cover to use for her #70 Cover of the Week post. Sugar kept on thinking of more than one, and they all seemed to have a theme/characteristic. So she decided to switch things up a bit!

Each week we will post a characteristic and choose 5 of our favorite covers with that characteristic. If you want to join in and share your 5 favorite covers with the weeks particular characteristic, then just make a post, grab the meme picture (or make your own) and leave your URL in Linky (so we can visit).

You don’t even need to participate, just stopping by and saying hi would be great! Don’t forget to stop by the other participants!

This Week's Characteristic: Hair






A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb
Uninvited by Sophie Jordan
Sisters of Misery by Megan Kelley Hall
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

my favorite:

Star-Crossed by Linda Collison

I just love the colors and the way her hair merges into the sea. It's something that probably could be weird looking but it's not and I love it. (I own this book and it really is pretty.)


There are a lot of book covers featuring hair - do you have a favorite? Leave a comment and let me know! (Link me to your own Cover Characteristic post if you have one.)

Trailer Reveal: Ignite the Shadows [@XpressoReads @ingrid_seymour @HarperVoyagerUK]

about the book:

Ignite the Shadows (#1)
Harper Voyager
April 23, 2015
ebook
Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Young Adult
add to Goodreads/buy from Amazon.or B&N

Sixteen-year-old Marci Guerrero is one of the best teen hackers in Seattle. However, she’d give up all her talents to know she isn’t crazy.

Marci feels possessed by what she perceives as shadowy spectres that take control of her body and make her do crazy things. While spying on the clandestine group known as IgNiTe, she’s confronted by the leader, James McCray. His presence stirs the spectres inside her brain into a maddening frenzy. Her symptoms and ability to control them don’t go unnoticed by James, who soon recruits her and shows her the awful truth.

Half of the world’s population is infected by sentient parasites. They bind themselves to the human brain and replace the pathways for all thoughts and actions. The creatures then morph their hosts into grotesque monsters with extraordinary strengths. Winged, clawed, fanged half-humans become living nightmares. Now Marci wishes she was crazy, because the truth is worse.

She’s infected.


about the author:

  

Ingrid Seymour (website) is the author of IGNITE THE SHADOWS (Harper Voyager, April 23rd, 2015). When she’s not writing books, she spends her time working as a software engineer, cooking exotic recipes, hanging out with her family and working out. She writes young adult and new adult fiction in a variety of genres, including Sci-Fi, urban fantasy, romance, paranormal and horror.

Her favorite outings involve a trip to the library or bookstore where she immediately gravitates toward the YA section. She’s an avid reader and fangirl of many amazing books. She is a dreamer and a fighter who believes perseverance and hard work can make dreams come true.

She lives in Birmingham, AL with her husband, two kids and a cat named Mimi.


the trailer: 




giveaway:

(link)

Book Trailer Friday [@RandomHouse @TransworldBooks]

Beth Dorey-Stein's From the Corner of the Oval  - a tale of being the White House stenographer during the Obama administration will be ...