❤ Tue, Apr. 23, 2013

In honor of William Shakespeare’s birthday (celebrated on April 23 – TODAY!), authors Kim Askew and Amy Helmes have dropped by with a guest blog post to announce a special contest!

Get A “Twisted Lit” Character Named After You!

We reimagined William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and “Macbeth,” with our “compulsively readable” YA books, Tempestuous and Exposure. Ever since the novels were published a few months ago through Merit Press we’ve encountered a frequent question: Which of Shakespeare’s plays will inspire your next books in the Twisted Lit series?

While we’re currently hard at work putting our own spin on the Bard’s “Romeo and Juliet” we thought we’d look to you, the readers, to help us pick the fourth Shakespeare play that will inspire our next book in the series. Got a hankering for a new spin on “Hamlet?” Love to see “King Lear” get a YA update? Would you make much ado over our take on “Much Ado About Nothing?”

Go to our Facebook page (Facebook.com/Twistedlitnovels) and write on our wall to weigh in on which Shakespeare play you’d like us to revamp next. In doing so, you’ll be entered to have your very own name mentioned in one of our upcoming books (either as a character or some other fun reference). If you’ve always wanted to see your name in print — in a YA novel, no less — now’s your chance! The winner will also receive autographed copies of our first two novels, Tempestuous and Exposure.

We’re looking forward to hearing your suggestions! (And don’t forget to follow us on twitter at @kaskew and @amyhelmes.)

* Winner will not be compensated for use of his or her name, and publication is not guaranteed. Details of plot and character used in connection with the name as it appears in the book are up to the sole discretion of the authors. Contest ends June 1.

Kim & Amy

Thank you, Kim and Amy, for inviting me to be a part of this! This is a wonderful giveaway and a great way to celebrate ol’ Will’s birthday as well. I love King Lear and I think it would be so cool for you two to twist that up. But I also love Twelfth Night with all of its mistaken identity and light-heartedness…I think that would be fun to update as well. Here’s hoping!

Related post:

Review: Exposure (Twisted Lit, 2)

1 note
Comments

Tags: 2013 | ya | William Shakespeare's Birthday | guest post | giveaway |

❤ Tue, Dec. 18, 2012

Fang Girl by Helen Keeble - September 11th 2012 / HarperTeen

Things That Are Destroying Jane Greene’s Undead Social Life Before It Can Even Begin:

1) A twelve-year-old brother who’s convinced she’s a zombie.
2) Parents who are begging her to turn them into vampires.
3) The pet goldfish she accidentally turns instead.
4) Weird superpowers that let her rip the heads off of every other vampire she meets. (Sounds cool, but it doesn’t win you many friends.)
5) A psychotic vampire creator who’s using her to carry out a plan for world domination.

And finally:

6) A seriously ripped vampire hunter who either wants to stake her or make out with her. Not sure which.

Being an undead, eternally pasty fifteen-year-old isn’t quite the sexy, brooding, angst-fest Jane always imagined….

Helen Keeble’s riotous debut novel combines the humor of Vladimir Tod with Ally Carter’s spot-on teen voice. With a one-of-a-kind vampire mythology and an irresistibly relatable undead heroine, this uproarious page-turner will leave readers bloodthirsty for more.

Excerpt:

In which Our Heroine, Xanthe Jane Greene (unexpectedly undead vampire fangirl) tries to get to grips with her new state…

I was pretty sure I would have remembered being bitten by a vampire, but the last thing I could recall before waking up in the grave was . . . sitting in the backseat of Alice’s mum’s Volvo. I wasn’t really friends with Alice—I wasn’t really friends with anyone down here yet, as my family had only moved in two weeks ago—but we both played the violin and sat next to each other in the orchestra, and her family lived down the road from mine, so her mum had offered to give me a lift back from practice. We’d been coming up one of the twisty little country lanes, and I was trying to make Alice like me by laughing at all her jokes and agreeing that the boy she liked probably fancied her back, and then—a sudden lurch, my seat belt abruptly strangling me, and—nothing.

I must have died in a car crash.

In all my books, movies, and TV shows, I’d never heard of someone becoming undead through being hit by a vampire’s car. Not even in fanfic.

But however it had happened, I was definitely a vampire. I stood up and dusted myself off, then looked around. On the other side of the fence, a narrow country lane snaked away, leading from the Downs toward the south coast. I could hear the distant roar of cars on the main road. Lacking any better option, I started to walk toward the sound. Vampires were urban creatures, after all, and the nearest thing to urban around here was the grubby seaside town of Worthing. It wasn’t much, but it was better than an open sheep field. I could go and hide in . . . in the sewers, I guessed, since there were only two places feral vampires tended to hang out, and Worthing was really, really short on decadent Goth nightclubs. I’d hole up and wait for my sire, and then . . . then . . .

Then I guessed I’d have to start my new life. Unlife. On the plus side, there would probably be stylish clothes and amazing psychic abilities and really hot guys in leather trousers. On the negative side, I’d probably never see sunlight again, or eat chocolate, and I might slowly spiral into a sinkhole of angst and despair until someone staked me. And I didn’t have any money. Or a change of underwear. Or a way to have a shower. And—my stomach rumbled—it was looking increasingly likely that I was going to have to eat raw sheep.

And I wasn’t going to be able to see my family ever again.

My vision went a bit misty, and my lower lip started to tremble. I blinked the tears back. Vampires didn’t cry. Vampires were cool. Deliberately, I thought of all the things I’d be leaving behind. No more constant moving. No more always being the new girl, trying to break into social cliques. As a vampire, I’d be the queen bee with a constant circle of admirers. No more worrying that my exam results wouldn’t be good enough to get into university, or whether I was getting fat. I was going to be slender and gothically beautiful forever.

Well, I was going to be fifteen forever. That kind of sucked. Why couldn’t I have been turned next year?

Never mind, I told myself firmly. I was a vampire. This was going to be great. I’d get to hang out with other vampires, who would be effortlessly elegant and would treat me like an adult. No more fights with my mother over my spending habits. No more annoying little brother stealing my eyeliner. No more embarrassing dad wearing yellow spandex in public and making me go out with him on bike rides. No more, no more.

I stopped, tears streaking my face.

“Well, screw that,” I said, and punched my home number into the mobile phone.

Helen Keeble is not, and never has been, a vampire. She has however been a teenager. She grew up partly in America and partly in England, which has left her with an unidentifiable accent and a fondness for peanut butter crackers washed down with a nice cup of tea. She now lives in West Sussex, England, with her husband, daughter, two cats, and a variable number of fish. To the best of her knowledge, none of the fish are undead.

Her first novel, a YA vampire comedy called FANG GIRL, is out 11th Sept 2012, from HarperTeen.

She also has another YA paranormal comedy novel (provisionally titled NO ANGEL) scheduled for Sept 2013.

Please note that this giveaway is not hosted by me but rather by Xpresso Book Tours and author Helen Keeble. It is open internationally and ends on 25 December 2012. The prize pack includes one signed (personalized if preferred) copy of Fang Girl, a voucher for an ARC of Helen’s next book No Angel when they are available, a vampire goldfish paperclip, and Fang Girl stickers. Good luck!

2 notes
Comments

Tags: 2012 | YA | paranormal | promo blitz | Xpresso Book Tours | excerpt | giveaway |

❤ Mon, Dec. 03, 2012

Today The Musings of ALMYBNENR is excited to join the WinterHaven Sleigh Tour hosted by WinterHaven Books! This week, we are posting our choice of a Winter Book Review. To see who else is on the sleigh, go to WinterHaven Sleigh Tour for a list of participating blogs.

What do you do when you have lost that spark with your long-term boyfriend, are worried about your after-high school plans not working out with his, yet still want him in your life? Think up a clever plan to make him fall for another girl, that is what!

Lexi Michaels, native of Claus Lake, Wisconsin, decides to do just that. Cameron Kehoe is a really great guy, a gentleman, but he plans to stay local to their Christmas-obsessed town and maybe one day open up a restaurant while Lexi plans to go to college far away and pursue her future career in a big city. Cam does not seem worried but Lexi cannot reconcile her plans and her relationship, but she wants to at least keep Cam’s friendship. So she decides to get him to break up with her and she even has a girl lined up for him: new-to-town southern belle Jaylene. But when Lexi’s plan works and she sees the results in person, she feels a twinge of guilt and maybe a bit of jealousy. She can barely stand seeing cute, bubbly Jaylene draped all over her Cam and she enlists the help of her best friend Allie and her cousin Nick to help her come up with a new plan: get Cam back in time for Christmas.

Catherine Hapka wrote The Twelve Dates of Christmas (what a fun title!) from the first person point-of-view of Lexi. Lexi was one of those very logical girls who always sided with her brain rather than her heart or instincts and all signs pointed to her relationship with Cam not working out after they graduated, so she decided to end things sooner rather than later, but she also did not want to hurt him, so she needed him to break up with her. With some elaborate planning and despite protests from her romance-lovin’, budding self-help specialist best friend Allie and her cousin Nick (who was more like a brother), Lexi succeeded. It felt awkward to me as well as sad and conflicted because I agreed with Allie: Lexi made a huge mistake. I really felt badly for Cam even though he was hurt less with things working out this way, but I also felt for Lexi because she thought she had to do this instead of letting things play out and be great.

Once Lexi began to doubt herself and began trying to get Cam back in earnest, she tried and failed over and over and Allie’s “Twelve Date” theory (once a new couple had been on twelve dates, their relationship would pretty much be solid) did not help her. She panicked and became more and more desperate. But I was rooting for her the whole time. She needed to get Cam back! What made things more difficult was despite Jaylene’s outgoing, bubbly personality, she genuinely liked Lexi and pretty much everyone and she was a really sweet girl. I worried how things would end up with her.

And all the time, the town’s huge Christmas Eve Costume Ball was looming closer and closer and if Cam’s dates with Jaylene were any inclination, it seemed as though the ball would end up being the very important date number twelve.

The Twelve Dates of Christmas was a beautiful Christmas story and really, the first of its kind that I have ever read, as far as I know. I have never picked up a non-children’s book that was specifically marketed as a Christmas book. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was exactly the kind of feel good movie I would find on ABC Family at this time of year, with the romantic screw-ups and holiday magic. It was a book about honesty, love, and the season’s magic of harmony and all-around good cheer. I even teared up with the final chapter. The Twelve Dates of Christmas was not only a good Christmas read, but also just a good young adult contemporary novel.

Recommended for young adult readers fourteen and older who enjoy contemporary novels and are wanting ones with a holiday twist.

Catherine Hapka has written over one hundred books for children and adults, both under her own name and as a ghostwriter. The books she has written for the Romantic Comedies series (stand-alones by various authors grouped as romantic comedies) include The Twelve Dates of Christmas, Something Borrowed, and Love on Cue. Hapka lives in Pennsylvania.

Buy on: Amazon │ The Book Depository │ Books-A-Million

As part of the festivities, WinterHaven Books is hosting an international giveaway that will include a copy of Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares (signed by Levithan and Cohn) and a copy of Let it Snow to four lucky winners. Good luck and happy holidays!

Comments

Tags: 2012 | 2012 150 Reading Challenge | 2012 Books You Can Read in a Day Challenge | 2012 eBook Challenge | Kindle | WinterHaven Sleigh Tour 2012 | YA | YA Contemporary Challenge 2012 | bought | contemporary | eBook | fiction | holidays | review | giveaway |

❤ Thu, Nov. 29, 2012

Disclaimer: No spoilers from Surrender, but read with caution if you have not read Possession and Resist.

Raine Hightower usually plays by the rules since her father is the Director of Freedom, but she feels that her good behavior can be rewarded by breaking protocol every now and then. But she does everything her father asks when it comes to her flatmate, Vi, and when it comes to using her dangerous and rare talent, even if it scares her. But things start to change when a schoolmate, Gunner Jameson, becomes more of a fixture in her everyday life.

Gunner plays by the rules too, even more so than Raine…at least until Director Hightower and Thane Meyers uproot his entire life and he becomes entangled in all kinds of activities. He also ends up rooming with Zenn Bower, which pulls him deeper into subversion and into Zenn’s, Vi’s, Raine’s, and even Jag’s lives. Yep, Jag Barque…resident prisoner of Freedom.

As Gunner prepares for his immediate future, which he hopes will include Raine, she becomes more and more suspicious about why her father keeps Vi brainwashed and what the other girl knows that must not be revealed.

Remember that guy Jag? I was ready to fight Vi for him in Possession, but there was a new kid in town in Surrender. Okay, so he had lived in Freedom his whole life, but Gunner Jameson was new to me and to readers of Elana Johnson’s work. He was great. Unlike Jag and even Zenn (who was sort of in-between, but more cunning than I gave him credit for in the beginning), Gunner was pretty much the good guy who followed the rules and crushed on an unattainable girl. But he had this little extra quality - I guess the best way I can describe it was as an undercurrent or streak of rebellion that was just waiting for the right circumstances to surface.

Do not worry - Vi and especially Zenn played large roles in Surrender and they might surprise you. Zenn surprised me a lot and most of the time I could not figure him out, kind of like Gunner. Let me just say that Zenn excelled at his job.

Vi and Zenn were the secondary main characters while Gunner and Raine Hightower were the primary main characters. Raine was an interesting new character. She was an aloof teen who followed protocol publicly and broke it secretly every chance she had. Johnson wrote from both Raine’s and Gunner’s points-of-view, which helped to fill in the puzzling plot as I read on, because the story and the characters were never as they seemed and they all had many different layers that kept me interested and guessing. A big part of the Possession and Surrender world were the amazing abilities the people had and this second installment further described certain types of Talents, specifically Raine’s and Gunner’s unique and powerful ones. Because Surrender expanded on Vi’s, Zenn’s, and Jag’s original stories and added these two new main characters, I noticed that the different Talents were explained more in-depth since the focus was broader…which was GREAT! Because early on when I was reading Possession last year, I really wanted more back-story and explanations and Surrender had just enough to satisfy those wants. With more characters involved and a lot of overt and covert stuff going on, the book had lots of mystery, a ton of surprising secrets, and a few mind-blowing revelations. Seriously. What I considered the biggest one will likely blow.your.mind.too. Surrender will keep you on your toes with all of the new information, but it was awesome to delve deeper into the many layers of this dystopian world Johnson created.

After reading about the huge love triangle in Possession, some may be wondering how big of a role romance played in Surrender. There was some romance but it was in the periphery and it did not dictate the direction of the story. Too often authors allow the love story to overpower the larger issues in the plot, but Johnson focused on the main points of the story rather than the romantic aspects and it made the whole package stronger. The everyday issues were far more important and the love parts were put on the back-burner: present, but not in the forefront.

Surrender was more intricate than its precursor and provided a lot more information on the world and the characters, which prompted more questions (which was good!). Johnson definitely improved upon the world-building and the back-story as well as her story-telling in general. I was not ever fully sure who was on which side and who could be trusted, but it kept me trying to figure out things and it was fresh and interesting.

Recommended for readers fourteen and up who are fans of Elana Johnson’s Possession as well as of other young adult dystopian books.

Elana Johnson wishes she could have superpowers, re-experience her first kiss, and tell off the mean girl but she does the next best thing: recreating those desires through writing. She has a degree in Elementary Education with a minor in Mathematics from Southern Utah University. She has worked as a teacher and as a technology specialist in addition to writing books. She currently lives in central Utah with her husband and two kids. Possession is available in paperback and Surrender is currently available in hardcover and eBook formats. Also available in the series are the short-story ebook Regret and Resist. Abandon, the third full-length book, will be available in June 2013.

Buy on: Amazon │ Book Depository

Related Posts:
Review: Possession
Review: Insider Information: A Possession Short Story (now called Resist)

1 note
Comments

Tags: 2012 | YA | dystopia | fiction | review | Possession and Surrender Blog Tour | CBB Book Promotions | review copy | 2012 150 Reading Challenge | 2012 eBook Challenge | giveaway |

❤ Mon, Oct. 08, 2012

So, are you wanting to know who won this super cute children’s book? Wait no longer!

Congrats, Mandee!

Thank you all for entering. Stay tuned for further giveaways!

Related post:

Review: Ballyhoo Bay/Bahía Bay

Comments

Tags: 2012 | giveaway |