Welcome to another segment in our “A Dude Reads PNR” series, in which our delightful buddy Harry, from Temple Library Reviews joins us once a month to review paranormal romance from a dude’s perspective. Please give a warm welcome to Harry!

Title: The Bloodgate Guardian

Author: Joely Sue Burkhart

Genre: PNR

Publisher: Carina Press
Publication Date: June 14, 2010
Paperback: 271 pages

Standalone or series: I have perused the author’s website and not seen any indication that this is in a series. The book itself reads a standalone, so I will assume it’s such. If I am very wrong, please correct me.

Dr. Jaid Merritt doesn’t do digs. The last time she ventured into the jungle, someone died. Now she’s content to decipher Maya glyphs from pictures sent to her by her famous archaeologist father. But when he goes missing while trying to perform a ritual based on her translations of an ancient codex, Jaid must put aside her fears and travel to Guatemala to find him.

After misusing the Bloodgates to bring his twin brother back from the afterlife, the Maya priest known as Ruin was cursed by the gods to stand as the guardian for all time. He was unable to stop Dr. Charles Merritt from opening the gates, and now demons roam this world. The last thing he wants to do is hurt the beautiful woman who is somehow infused with his magic, but if she uses the codex to retrieve her father, Ruin must do his duty. And this time, he won’t fail. Even if it kills him. Again.

How did I get the book: The PDF review copy was sent to me by Ana, who received it by the publisher. All I can say is naughty, promiscuous PDF file; jumping from e-mail to e-mail.

Review:

Oh, kiddos. How I missed you. Did you miss me, too, while the YA month rampaged on and on and on for a… well, whole month? I am positive, when I assume that you waited for me, all starved and bothered for a long hack-‘n-slash review of yet another paranormal romance. Oh, evil you! Anyway [looks uncomfortable], I’m back and I’m happy to report that there will be no slashing, hacking or bemoaning an unentertaining read. No, The Bloodgate Guardian is above average.

The official summary, by the way, gives an accurate depiction of what goes on in the book. Reader, meet Jaid Merritt [the weird heroine naming tradition is alive and well], a professor, who doesn’t do digs. Sadly, it’s exactly what she has to do, when her father’s last message is a video, in which a ritual goes horribly wrong. Jaid travels to Guatemala to solve the mystery, but reality and fantasy do the Helen Keller together, leaving Jaid no longer sure what she can believe. It really doesn’t help, when you have a shape shifting immortal with a bright spot in the Mayan mythology and oh, the end of the world, now does it?

Contrary to my expectations I didn’t get porn, porn, porn. The Bloodgate Guardian has a plot, which the author follows and never sacrifices for the sake of the leads to hump each other. It’s surprisingly refreshing, that. Even so, I am torn on this. There are parts I extremely liked and others, while I saw were handled well enough would have liked to see extinct.

I love that Jaid is vulnerable. I love the fact that she is smart-ass, not kick-ass. She doesn’t do the whole super ninja vixen. No leather pants and favorite blades for this chick. She’s nerdy and the Un-Indiana Jones of the faculty. Brilliant characterization, right there. Pure gold. It makes Jaid stand out from all the other leading females in the genre. I also can honestly say that Jaid’s the strong woman urban fantasy and paranormal romance has been boasting with. She’s not sure she will win and she is mortified to venture, but she does. She falls down and picks herself up, because the situation demands it. That’s what I call bravery and perseverance.

What I’m not thrilled with is the weird name. I’m sure that it isn’t typical and within PNR and UF the tendency is to go with something unprecedented. This is done to ensure just how much of a snowflake the character is. In this case, there is a game with the mineral jade, which if I am correct was used by the Mayans. Not exactly sure.

The love interest is not the cookie-cutter Alpha Male. Ruin [yes, Ruin] has a story of his own, which is explored through his own POV. He’s a priest, not a warrior. Again not exactly how the genre rolls. He errs as we see at the beginning, allowing Dr. Merritt to perform the ritual and appearing too late to prevent it. His past, his sins and his redemption paired with Jaid’s own complicated and saddening past make for an emotionally laden novel.

BUT the dude is a shapeshifter. I’m not knowledgeable, so who knows, Mayans might as well have whatever passes for werewolves. Am I a fan? No, not really. After the world filled with girls, belonging to team Jacob, lycanthropy can go curl up in a corner, because it deserves a big time-out. Vampires should do the same. Just saying.

Kudos goes to Burkhart for the solid worldbuilding. It seems like Maya are the new couture of the paranormal world [with 2012 closing in], which I welcome. I get to explore a different set of beliefs and stories and after reading The Final Prophecy by Jessica Andersen the bar is set rather high. Burkhart does not disappoint and through Jaid’s passion for the Maya, it’s hard not to get rubbed the right way. Xixalba is one creepy kind of hell, the demons within even creepier, but it’s all very interesting. It’s also intriguing to see how the definition of hell shifts from culture to culture. The Mayan hell is nothing like Christianity’s hell.

I will end with personal pet peeves. What’s with the end of the world? Seriously, why must all couples save the world? Is this some kind of right of passage? You save the world together, so it means you are destined for each other? Mhm, beats couple counseling, I guess. ‘Honey, lets not fight. Remember how we saved the world that time way back.’ ‘Oh yeah, good times.’ I do not oppose the end of the world, but here [but not exclusively] this is used to speed the feelings between the characters. Nothing beats the adrenaline rush of ‘OMG, we will die’ and people want to feel the most, given the time they have left is really limited.

The end was too happy… There, I said it. Jaid’s father should have died, because he messed with powers he didn’t understand. His motifs were selfish. Therefore, his life the appropriate price. However, Jaid manages to save her father in order to solve her daddy issues and learn that she is loved and that her father is proud of her… Ruin, on the other hand, through Jaid’s help saves his brother’s soul and ends his curse. Release as a theme is very heavily accented upon and while love does release a person from his problems, but a happy conclusion to every plot line is not exactly my cup of tea. I follow the philosophy that while you may win the war, you will ultimately suffer wounds that may or may not heal. Here, I am left with the taste of wish fulfillment.

Verdict: Though not mind blowing, The Bloodgate Guardian is well written, evenly paced and told with passion. What I consider pet peeves might be someone else’s literary crack. This is the sentence, the jury is now dismissed.

Reading Next: Shade Fright by Sean Cummings

Thank you, Harry! You can read all of Harry’s reviews as our official PNR Dude HERE.

Title: How I Live Now

Author: Meg Rosoff

Genre: YA/ Dystopian

Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books (US)/ Puffin (UK)
Publication Date:April 2006 / June 2010 (UK – re edition)
Paperback: 194 pages

“Every war has turning points and every person too.”

Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she’s never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Her aunt goes away on business soon after Daisy arrives. The next day bombs go off as London is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy.

As power fails, and systems fail, the farm becomes more isolated. Despite the war, it’s a kind of Eden, with no adults in charge and no rules, a place where Daisy’s uncanny bond with her cousins grows into something rare and extraordinary. But the war is everywhere, and Daisy and her cousins must lead each other into a world that is unknown in the scariest, most elemental way.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone.

How did I get this book: Bought.

Why did I read this book: It has been on our radar for a long, long time.

Review:

I had been waiting to read How I Live Now for a long time now, especially after reading reviews by some of my favourites bloggers (and by a few newspapers too, but who cares about those? I trust my favourite bloggers so much more. Angie even NAMED her adorable child after a character in this book) and finally the time came with YAAM.

It’s not hard to pinpoint what makes How I Live Now such a compelling read: its evocative, atmospheric narrative with its lack of both punctuation and dialogue speech marks and the non-stop-I-can’t-breathe-must-keep-reading pacing more than anything else are what kept me turning the pages voraciously. How I Live Now is not flawless but it is SO beautiful it hurts.

Daisy is our protagonist and narrator. A 15 year old New Yorker who has been sent by her father to live with her late mother’s relatives in England. Daisy recounts her life in England with her weirdly magical cousins, from the idyllic first days gallivanting in the countryside, without adult supervision after her aunt goes on a trip to Oslo, to falling in love with her cousin Edmond. The narrative progresses with the ensuing chaos after England is invaded, the War starts and the cousins are evacuated and separated; the high point is Daisy’s relentless strive for survival alongside her youngest cousin Piper and her attempts to reunite with Edmond.

Once How I Live Now starts, I found it difficult to put it down. Part of this reaction comes from its nonstop narrative. I think the best way to describe is: it reads as though Daisy took a deep breath one day and decided to tell me, the reader, how she lived in those days in England and didn’t stop until she was done. The result is a rapport between the reader and Daisy that is hard to break because the narrative is inviting and intimate.

I also find that is almost impossible to separate plot and character when it comes to this book. I think that both plot and narrative ARE essentially Daisy. And Daisy is, and consequently the narrative as well, self-absorbed and unreliable but also: funny, resilient, compassionate, and spirited. She is a doer and a survivor and among cousins that are almost mythical creatures (they have weird abilities like being able to talk to animals and communicate silently), she is also almost the most REAL one too. She is a force, a propelling force.

I think this quote summarises everything that Daisy is:

“I don’t get nearly enough credit in life for the things I manage not to say.

Of course in order to survive, Piper and I needed to have a plan, and I was the one who was going to have to make it because Piper’s job was to be a Mystical Creature and mine was to get things done here on earth which was just how the cards were dealt and there was no point thinking of it any other way. Our major plan, which we didn’t even have to discuss, was to get back together with Edmond and Isaac and Osbert by hook or by crook. So far, I was pretty hazy in the details.”

Does she do it? You will have to read to find out. But know this, the second part of the book is starkly different from the first part and it is heartbreaking and heart-warming and the final lines of the novel are incredible.

There is also an aura of mystery surrounding the story because Daisy is a certain type of unreliable narrator – one who is self-absorbed and won’t look further than its own nose, at least to begin with. And this presents a twofold result.

On one hand I felt utterly frustrated by this. And this is a very personal reaction to the story itself and how Daisy reacts to what is happening around her. A war is looming in the horizon, their country is invaded, the only adult they can count on is gone and yet Daisy doesn’t seem to be asking a lot of questions. Because of that, I couldn’t tell you WHO invaded England, WHEN or WHY. The story also has a certain “old days” feeling – the kids are homeschooled, they live off the farm but it is in fact some point in the near future. There are mentions of emails and mobiles and so I found it hard to believe that these kids would be so naïve and so insulated as to not ask simple questions, especially at their age. Daisy starts a sexual relationship with Edmond and although I have zero problems with the fact that they are cousins, and I actually loved their connection and love story, I do have a problem with how she never thought of contraception (I kept waiting for her to get pregnant).

So this is on the one hand. On the other hand, the fact that the narrative is so destitute of certain realistic details it allows for the story to be stripped down to its bare essentials, to what is crucial: the people and how they survive in times of war. Because of that, the pesky details don’t really matter because all you need to know is how Daisy lived then and how she lives now. And what she has to do to get from one point to another. And THAT my friends is a story worth reading.

Notable Quotes/Parts:

My name is Elizabeth but no one’s ever called me that. My father took one look at me when I was born and must have thought I had the face of someone dignified and sad like an old fashioned queen or a dead person, but what I turned out like is plain, not much there to notice. Even my life so far has been plain. More Daisy than Elizabeth from the word go.

But the summer I went to England to stay with my cousins everything changed. Part of that was because of the war, which supposedly changed lots of things, but I can’t remember much about life before the war anyway so it doesn’t count in my book, which this is.

Mostly everything changed because of Edmond.

And so here’s what happened.

****

I’m coming off this plane, and I’ll tell you why that is later, and landing at London airport and I’m looking around for a middle-aged kind of woman who I’ve seen in pictures who’s my Aunt Penn. The photographs are out of date, but she looked like the type who would wear a big necklace and flat shoes, and maybe some kind of narrow dress in black or gray. But I’m just guessing since the pictures only ever showed her face.

Anyway, I’m looking and looking and everyone’s leaving and there’s no signal on my phone and I’m thinking Oh Great, I’m going to be abandoned at the airport so that’s two countries they don’t want me in, when I notice everyone’s gone except this kid who comes up to me and says You must be Daisy. And when I look relieved he does too and says I’m Edmond.

Hello Edmond, I said, nice to meet you, and I look at him hard to try to get a feel for what my new life with my cousins might be like.
Now let me tell you what he looks like before I forget because it’s not exactly what you’d expect from your average fourteen-year-old what with the CIGARETTE and hair that looked like he cut it himself with a hatchet in the dead of night, but aside from that he’s exactly like some kind of mutt, you know the ones you see at the dog shelter who are kind of hopeful and sweet and put their nose straight into your hand when they meet you with a certain kind of dignity and you know from that second that you’re going to take him home? Well that’s him.
Only he took me home.

I’ll take your bag, he said, and even though he’s about half a mile shorter than me and has arms about as thick as a dog leg, he grabs my bag, and I grab it back and say Where’s your mom, is she in the car?

And he smiles and takes a drag on his cigarette, which even though I know smoking kills and all that, I think is a little bit cool, but maybe all the kids in England smoke cigarettes? I don’t say anything in case it’s a well known fact that the smoking age in England is something like twelve and by making a big thing about it I’ll end up looking like an idiot when I’ve barely been here five minutes. Anyway, he says Mum couldn’t come to the airport cause she’s working and it’s not worth anyone’s life to interrupt her while she’s working, and everyone else seemed to be somewhere else, so I drove here myself.
I looked at him funny then.

You drove here yourself? You DROVE HERE yourself? Yeah well and I’M the Duchess of Panama’s Private Secretary.

Verdict: Even though I was slightly frustrated with the not-knowing, I fully appreciated the book for what it is: an engrossing, beautiful story of survival and love.

Rating: Ana: 8 – Excellent

Reading Next: The Thief Taker’s Apprentice by Stephen Deas

Title:My Most Excellent Year

Author: Steve Kluger

Genre: YA: Contemporary, LGBT

Publisher: Speak
Publication date: February 2009
Paperback: 416 pages

Best friends and unofficial brothers since they were six, ninth-graders T.C. and Augie have got the world figured out. But that all changes when both …more Best friends and unofficial brothers since they were six, ninth-graders T.C. and Augie have got the world figured out. But that all changes when both friends fall in love for the first time. Enter Ale. She’s pretty, sassy, and on her way to Harvard. T.C. falls hard, but Ale is playing hard to get. Meanwhile, Augie realizes that he’s got a crush on a boy. It’s not so clear to him, but to his family and friends, it’s totally obvious! Told in alternating perspectives, this is the hilarious and touching story of their most excellent year, where these three friends discover love, themselves, and how a little magic and Mary Poppins can go a long way.

Stand alone or series:: Stand Alone

How did I get this book: Bought.

Why did I read this book: Because of this review.

Review:

I blame it on Renay. When she wrote about My Most Excellent Year she said:

it is unflinchingly, over the top, with-no-shame-whatsoever the happiest book in the world. Ain’t nothing but blue skies.

She had me at hello. And she was right too: My Most Excellent Year is an extremely happy book. Like ponies and rainbows and butterflies in a field of dreams, happy. And it has so many elements that I LOVE like the fact that it is an epistolary novel with romance and theatre and musicals and Mary Poppins and romance and kissing and I really loved it and hugged the book once I was finished and will treasure it like I treasure beautiful fairytales.

I reviewed The Ghosts of Ashbury High by Jaclyn Moriarty a couple of days ago and I talked about how much I love epistolary novels and it is funny (and most excellent) how both books follow a similar format with both being written as school assignments. In this case, three kids: Augie, Alejandra and T.C. writing about their most excellent year which was their freshmen year of high school in letter format as well as having IM convos, emails between all of the involved (including their parents), theatre reviews clippings from Augie’s mom.

T.C. addresses his letter to his late mother. She died when he was six and that when he became best friends with Augie. They became such good friends that they decided that they are in fact brothers and have been ever since. Both their families adopted each other too and T.C has a room at Augie’s and calls his parents Mom and Dad and Augie has a room at T.C.,’s and calls his dad pop. T.C.’s narrative covers his relationship with his dad, his love for baseball especially the Red Sox, and his love for his brother and his new found feelings for a girl named Alejandra. Then he befriends a small deaf kid who lives in an orphanage.

Alejandra is Mexican, daughter of an ambassador and her families have Big Plans for her but really Alejandra just wants to act and dance more than anything but she thinks her family would never allow that. She might be falling for T.C. but she thinks he is too cocky and perfect. Her letters are addressed to Jacqueline Kennedy and Alejandra is an incredibly interesting, strong-willed female character.

Augie is Chinese – American, plays soccer and loves all things about theatre. He is dramatic and loud and AWESOME, AUGIE I LOVE YOU. He addresses his letter to several Hollywood divas and when he starts to develop a crush on another boy named Andy Wexler, he realises that he is gay, a fact that doesn’t surprise anyone, not even his father who had been waiting for him to realise that so that they could talk about it. And that is quite possibly my favourite thing about the book: that there is never a “coming out” for Augie.

One day he realises he is gay, and that is it. It is ok and it is a fact that is respected by everybody. His conflict is just a regular love story – does he love me, does he not love me, more importantly, does he love me the way I am? – and it is great, you guys, and when they first kiss it is hilarious and awesome. To put things into perfective, Alejandra has a harder time coming as a theatre-lover. Part of me thought that perhaps this was too wishful thinking, that having Augie not finding any problem whatsoever at school for example is not really realistic. But then I thought about this great article that Malinda Lo wrote for John Scalzi’s Big Idea blog about her own book Ash:

That allowed me to write Ash as a fairy tale, not a coming-out story. That means that Ash only has to fall in love. When her love interest is another woman, it’s just as wonderful as it would be if she fell in love with a man.

I’m guessing that most if not all LGBT people understand that this is the true fairy tale: the idea that you could fall in love with someone of the same sex and only know the dizzying feeling of falling in love — untarnished by any of society’s disapproval. And you know what? Gay people need fairy tales, too.

I love that and that is exactly what My Most Excellent Year proposes.

But Augie’s story is only but a part of the book and there are many other things to love about it. All the theatre references including reviews by Augie’s mom in which she criticises several well loved musicals and they made me think so much and review things I never thought about. Or how the story is also about perception. There is a very telling story that is recounted by both Augie and T.C. about how one day T.C. showed up at school with his shirt inside out and then all kids did the same. For Augie it showed how much T.C. was a leader whereas T.C. thought the kids were making fun of him . All of the relationships are incredible too especially the one between Augie and T.C. and never once did I not think that they were NOT brothers. There is so much love and acceptance in this novel and about choosing who you love rather than that being determined simply by biology.

Where the novel fails slightly for me is in the relationship between T.C. and Hucky, the small kid he befriends. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it is beautiful and it certainly goes back to T.C. own childhood and how Augie helped him get through his mom’s death but there are certain aspects of that relationship that are too fantastical ( I am not going to spoil) and too much of a stretch. Plus, everybody is so perfect and nice. The kids, the parents, teachers, students, even *gasps* older brothers and although this certainly infuses the novel with a lever of heart-warmth that is hard not to succumb to it also sort of undermines the entire point of Augie’s storyline – because his fairytale is within the realm of possibility one day, but the others aren’t because as Jack Lemon once said: nobody is perfect.

Having said that, there is so much diversity and awesomeness about this book that it is really hard to be even slightly critical of it. I loved it and there is only one thing left to be said about it. My Most Excellent Year is well:

Most excellent, dudes. Approved by Bill and Ted

Notable Quotes/Parts: A letter from Augie’s father to T.C.’s father:

The Word Shop
Brookline’s Favorite Bookstore
E-Memo from the Desk of Craig Hwong

Hey Teddy,

You know you’ve earned your wings as a father when you drop by your kid’s bedroom to kiss him good night and on your way out of the door he stops you cold with “Dad? Is love supposed to hurt?” I’m not sure if there’s an easy answer to that particular riddle (yes, I am – there isn’t), but hearing that question from my son is the reason I wanted to be a parent in the first place. How did he know?

(…)

All he really needed to hear was that he’s not the first kid who’s had to go through this. (Isn’t that usually what it takes?) by the time I came back from the bathroom with his glass of water, he was already out like a light. And while I was tucking him in, I realised that we’d never had the “I’m gay” conversation. Has this generation finally made it superfluous? If only.

Additional Thoughts: Augie has a website! It is hilarious and full of cool things to check out (and links to Ale’s and T.C.’s too).

Augie’s stats:

Status: In a relationship. His name’s Andy. His eyes don’t match any color in the spectrum, so we think he invented Andy Blue.

Here for: Friends and anybody who can tell me in ten words or less WHY Alanis Morissette stopped touring. She was my entire life for three
weeks. Now I’m SO over her.

Orientation: Gay. Normally you can only go as high as a Kinsey 6, but they gave me an 8.

Hometown: Brookline, Massachusetts

Body type: 5′7″ and athletic: soccer, swimming, and track
(which really means cutoffs, Speedos, and white shorts—when you got it baby, flaunt it)

Ethnicity: Second generation Chinese American

Religion: Stephen Sondheim

Aww AUGIE!

Rating: 8 – Most Excellent!

Reading Next: Hero by Perry Moore

Title: The Ghosts of Ashbury High (US)/ Dreaming of Amelia

Author: Jaclyn Moriarty

Genre: YA/Contemporary

Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books (US) / Macmillan Children’s Books (UK)
Publication Date: June 2010 / April 2010
Paperback:(UK) 400 pages / HC (US): 496 pages

This is the story of Amelia and Riley, bad kids from bad Brookfield High who have transferred to Ashbury High for their final year. They’ve been in love since they were fourteen, they go out dancing every night, and sleep through school all day. And Ashbury can’t get enough of them.

Everyone’s trying to get their attention; even teachers are dressing differently, trying to make their classes more interesting. Everyone wants to be cooler, tougher, funnier, hoping to be invited into their cool, self-contained world.

But they don’t know that all Amelia can think about is her past — an idyllic time before she ran away from home. Riley thinks he’s losing her to the past, maybe even to a place further back in time. He turns to the students of Ashbury for help, and things get much, much worse.

Stand alone or series: It is part of a series of books set at Ashbury High/Brookfield schools but can be read as a stand alone.

How did I get this book: Bought

Why did I read this book: It called to me. Honestly. I had not read any reviews, nor any of this author’s previous books. I saw the cover and the title and IT WAS LIKE DESTINY CALLING MY NAME.

Review:

It was a dark and stormy night (when I started reading The Ghosts of Ashbury High). The rain fell torrentially and the trees outside rattled against my window occasionally. The house was silent and I was all alone. The lights in the street were out and I was reading by candlelight (ok, not really, but just go with the flow…). Reader! Hear the truth of my words! I had a strong sense of foreboding and a feeling of impending DOOM right after the first few pages and I felt I could faint at any moment.

And why, do you ask? The ghosts?, were you scared of the ghosts? Yes, Ghosts!!!! I say. I was too scared of the ghosts but no!!!! That sense of impending doom came upon the realisation that this book is INCREDIBLE and that I would have to go and buy Jaclyn Moriarty’s entire backlist, even if that made me bankrupt!! Even if I had to walk the miles to the bookstore in that DARK AND STORMY NIGHT!!!!!!

You know, gothically speaking.

It is the last year of High School for the students at Ashbury High and most of the story takes places during an HSC (High School Certificate in Australia) English exam on the topic of, yes, you guessed right, Gothic Fiction. The students have been asked to write a personal memoir which explores the dynamics of first impressions, drawing on their knowledge of gothic fiction. Thus, the majority of The Ghosts of Ashbury High’s narrative is via that exam question but also with letters, minutes from the school boards’ meetings, IM transcripts, blog entries (another assignment: write about Your Journey Home) interspersed throughout. Most of them alternate between the same four kids’ writings: Riley, Emily, Lydia and Toby and it mostly involves Riley and…Amelia.

“The first time I saw her I knew that my Amelia was a ghost”

Riley

Riley and Amelia are new at Ashbury High, a private school for rich and privileged kids, recently transferred from the neighbouring Brookfield public school on scholarships. From the get go Riley and Amelia take over everybody’s imagination with their aloofness, their mysterious comings and goings and their complete, obsessive involvement with each other at the expense of everybody else. Soon, they are excelling at everything: swimming, essay writing, arts. But there is just something not quite right about these two kids…….

I love epistolary novels. I LOVE them, in fact one of my all time favourite books is Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White. Jaclyn Moriarty made me remember why exactly I love this form of narrative with this excellent novel. Starting with infusing these letters and essays with so much character and voice that it would be easy to recognise which of the characters is writing what even if it wasn’t stated at the beginning of each part. The mysterious, dark Riley; the reliable, deep Toby; the almost serious yet spoiled Lydia; the drama queen Emily.

“It was the first day of Year 12.I had set out that morning with trepidation. I did not, in all honesty, see a crow, a raven, or any other black bird on the way to school that day. And yet! I was trepidatious.”

Emily

BUT!!!!!

Those are first impressions dear readers. Because this book is terminally clever: as the kids write their memoirs and starting with their first impressions of Riley and Amelia, we, as readers, are doing the same with the kids. And by the end of the book, none of them are left standing – within the book or within the reader.

It starts very, very light, hilarious even with each of them writing in what they think a Gothic narrative should be (complete with excess of exclamation points!!!!) and because of that, the reader never knows if what we are reading is true or not. Yes, epistolary narrative always has a degree of unreliability because we are wholly dependent on whoever is writing and whether they have chosen to write the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

BUT!!!!!

Even what a narrator chose to leave out of its narrative is important. And because there are four distinct narrators, a certain degree of truthfulness always end up making its way into the story. Sometimes they narrate the same event even, from such a completely discrepant point of view and yet both have got to be true somehow.

“There was the first time I saw this exam question. It happened just now. (…) my first impression of this question is that it sucks. Nothing has happened so far to change my mind.”

Lydia

As the story gains momentum and the plot thickens, I could not turn the pages faster. The story is almost like a farce, definitely gothic (ghosts!), a lot of comedy and so much heartbreak and character growth that I don’t even know how or when it happened but all of a sudden I am not reading the book I thought I was reading when I first set out.

This is a story about rich kids, poor kids, how their surroundings influence and the parenting that each has, shaped their present and possibly the future. About the opportunities the State and life give them (or not), and about abuse and about turning a blind eye to abuse and how adults sometimes suck so much (I could sucker punch the school’s principal if I could after a conversation he has with Emily) and how friendship and resilience and smarts can help with changing things.

BUT!!!!

That is not all. Somehow in the middle of it, Moriarty manages to go all historical as Toby’s narrative is actually him telling a story of an Irish convict who is sent to Australia when it was still a penal colony. Tom Kindaid’s story intermingles with the other narratives and is as interesting as the rest of it all.

“I have just noticed that the exam question asks for a personal memoir. So you want to hear from me – Toby Mazzerati – not some Irish convict dude named Tom Kinkaid who lived here in 1804. Hence, please disregard the above, and I will start my answer now.Thanks for your time”

Toby

And also: BLACK HOLES!!!!

And if you think for a moment that all of this is too much, please trust me when I say this. It is not! I can’t stress that enough!!!! With extra exclamation points!!! It is of UTMOST IMPORTANCE that I get this point across!!!!!! All is flawlessly linked and you only realise that in the EXTRAORDINARY ending when every.Single.Plot.Line comes together and my head exploded (gothically speaking) with the sheer brilliance of this book.

It is imaginative, poignant, heart-warming AND heartbreaking. Hilarious too.

PLUS!!!!

It has awesome GIRLS. Who talk to each other about many, many things other than boys. Although boys are involved and for example, the romance between Lydia and Seb which we see happening via Emily’s narrative (because she is a “student of love”), is amazing. But not as amazing as the girls themselves and how smart, talented yet flawed they are and what they will do for each other and how afraid they are of the future because this is what this book is all about: the future and how to get there and how terrifying that moment between the end of your teenage years and the beginning of your adult life is.

Above all though, this is a book about second chances (for everybody. And I do mean, EVERY SOUL) and how without them there is NO future.

I can’t think of a single thing that does not work in this book and I loved it with every bit of my being (brain and heart!) and I re-read it before writing this review and still it managed to evoke this feeling of greatness and warmth and it is awesome and I URGE you to go and read it. Your life may depend on it!!!!! You know, gothically speaking.

Notable Quotes/ Parts:

There was also the first time I saw them. It happened in roll call, the first day of the year.

He had a pair of swimming goggles slung over his shoulder. She
had bloodshot eyes. He sat on the window ledge, facing the room.
She turned and pressed her forehead to the glass to look out.
They were talking to each other.

I remember he called her Ame. Like aim. Like a command. And I
thought that her bloodshot eyes were looking out the window for a
target.

I remember she called him Riley, like his name could not be touched.

They both had wet hair, only hers was brushed back into a long
ponytail. From behind, I could see that the ponytail was leaking:

Thin watershadows formed on her school shirt.

As I watched, he rubbed his hands over his head. He was friendly
and rough with his head, as if it were a dog. Now his hair stood up in
spikes.

And then something happened.

She reached a hand toward him and he reached his hand toward
her, but his eyes found the eyes of strangers in the room. Their hands
almost touched but did not.

I saw cobwebs in the slender, empty space between those hands.

* * *
Later, at lunch, I told my friends about them.

“There’s two new people,” I said — and a storm rattled the windows
of the room.

I said they’d been together for years. I said they were swimmers. I
said they trained every day, and that swimming was her passion but he
went along just to swim beside her. I said she had a secret that was
breaking his heart.

Everything I said was based on my impression of Amelia and Riley
at the window in the classroom.

But nothing has happened so far to change my mind.

Additional Thoughts

Jaclyn Moriarty has written three other books in The Ashbury/Brookfield series – all of them epistolary novels, be still my heart:

The first (which I already read and it is GREAT too) is:

Life is pretty complicated for Elizabeth Clarry. Her best friend Celia keeps disappearing, her absent father suddenly reappears, and her communication with her mother consists entirely of wacky notes left on the fridge. On top of everything else, because her English teacher wants to rekindle the “Joy of the Envelope,” a Complete and Utter Stranger knows more about Elizabeth than anyone else.

But Elizabeth is on the verge of some major changes. She may lose her best friend, find a wonderful new friend, kiss the sexiest guy alive, and run in a marathon. So much can happen in the time it takes to write a letter…

The second one, also has different titles in the US and UK/Australia

When Lydia, Emily, and Cassie are assigned pen pals among the thugs at Brookfield High, they respond in characteristic style:

Cassie: “I always think it’s funny when a teacher tries to be cool. I want to sit them down and say ‘It’s okay, you’re a grown-up, you’re allowed to be a nerd,’ and they will look up at me confused but also relieved and teary-eyed.”

Lydia: “I am a fish. You wouldn’t think so to look at me, what with my uniform and the hair on top of my head and all that. But it’s true. I am a fish.”

Emily: “Don’t get me started about chocolate! My nickname might be ‘Em,’ but sometimes it’s also Toblerone! I think this is an angiogram of Thompson, which is my last name.”

And their pen-pals? Sebastian is an artist, a black belt in Tae Kwan Do, and a major hottie. Charlie is utterly gullible, a car expert/occasional thief, and a really sweet guy. But Matthew is…well, he’s either a psychopath or a figment of Cassie’s imagination, neither of which is a good sign. And what starts out as a simple letter exchange leads to secret assignments, false alarms, lock picking, legal drama, mistaken identities, Dates with Girls, and all-out war between the schools . . . the biggest challenge Lydia, Cass, and Emily’s friendship has ever faced.

And the third:

The Motive
Bindy Mackenzie is the most perfect girl at Ashbury High. She scores in the 99.9th percentile in all her classes. She holds lunchtime advisory sessions for her fellow students. She keeps careful transcripts of everything said around her. And she has been Kmart casual Employee of the Month for seventeen months straight.
No wonder somebody wants to kill her.

The Suspects
Bindy is horrified to learn she must take part in the Friendship And Development Project – a new class meant to provide a “life raft” through “the tricky seas of adolescence.” Bindy can’t see how airheaded Emily Thompson, absentminded Elizabeth Clarry, mouthy Toby Mazzerati, malicious Astrid Bexonville, silent Briony Atkins, narcissistic Sergio Saba and handsome, enigmatic Finnegon Blonde could ever possibly help her.
(Well, maybe Finnegan could.)

The Crime
But then Bindy’s perfect life begins to fall apart. She develops an obsession with the word “Cincinnati.” She can’t stop feeling sleepy. She fails an exam for the first time ever. And – worst of all – she just doesn’t care.
What could be the cause of all these strange events? Is it conspiracy? Is it madness? Is it . . . murder?

The Truth
Lots of people hate Bindy Mackenzie – but who would actually kill her? The answer is in Bindy’s transcripts. The detectives are the members of her FAD group. But Bindy has made every one of them into an enemy . . . and time is running out.

I shall read them all and review them soon.

What about you: are you a fan of her books? Which one is your favourite. And WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME ABOUT HER BOOKS BEFORE?

Verdict: The Ghosts of Ashbury High is stupendous. Engaging, clever narrative and with the amazing characters. The plot itself doesn’t let go and the ending is….perfect. Straight into my top 10 of 2010 it goes.

Rating: 10. TEN!!! It is as perfect as only an Ana-Book could ever be.

Reading Next: My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger

Welcome to Day 1 of our Young Adult Appreciation Month ( July 18 to August 21). For the duration of the month we will be celebrating all things YA with loads of reviews, giveaways and guest posts by YA authors.

Today is dedicated to Romance. I chose to review Beastly by Alex Flinn and Forget You by Jennifer Echols together because the two books have a couple of things in common on top of being contemporary romances: they are both heartwarming, quick reads and all four protagonists have fathers who deserve the Worst Parent of the Year Award. And regardless of a few misgivings, I enjoyed both books a great deal.

Beastly by Alex Flinn

Publisher: Harper Teen
Publication Date: October 2007
Hardcover: 304 pages

How did I get this book: A present from a friend.

I am a beast. A beast. Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog, but a horrible new creature who walks upright – a creature with fangs and claws and hair springing from every pore. I am a monster.

You think I’m talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It’s no deformity, no disease. And I’ll stay this way forever – ruined – unless I can break the spell.

Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, and a perfect life. And then, I’ll tell you how I became perfectly beastly.

Review:

I must have been living under a rock or something because I only heard about Beastly a few weeks ago when a friend gave it to me and told me it was about to become a movie. I saw the trailer and decided I had to read the book pronto. And here we are.

Beastly is another retelling of Beauty and the Beast set in contemporary NY and entirely from the beast’s point of view which makes it, as far as I can tell, unique amongst the tale’s retellings.

Kyle Kingsbury, our beast du jour, has it all: money, looks, popularity, friends and a hot girlfriend. He is also a jerk. His latest dastardly move is to lead on and invite a weird girl named Kendra to a dance only to humiliate her in front of everybody. Big mistake. Kendra is a modern-day witch and she curses Kyle to become a beast – to look as awful on the outside as he is inside. But because Kyle does this one kind thing on the night of the dance (he gives a rose to the girl selling tickets at the door) , the witch gives him a way out: he has two years to break the curse which can only be broken by a kiss from someone that loves him but only if he truly loves this someone back.

Kyle’s reaction to the curse is to first laugh it off (come on, magic? Witch? As if, it must be a dream) then to despair. His father believes he has a disease and takes him to the best doctors available but they can only be mystified and their verdict is that there is nothing to be done. Kyle’s father then decides that no one can know about his son’s “condition” and promptly dispatches him to a house in Brooklyn where he will live with a maid and a blind tutor where he will eventually learn to become a better person.

The best thing about the book is Kyle’s transformation and this insight about the Beast of the story is great. From being an egotistical jerk to realising that there is more to life than looks and popularity, the first part of the book – or the first year of the curse – follows Kyle and his slow transformation. It shows his uneasy, terrible relationship with an absent father; his despair and depression that he might be a beast forever and even feeble attempts to find someone to love online; his eventual acceptance that there might not have a way out and then the beginnings of a new life. Forming a true, believable relationship with his maid and with his tutor; studying and reading and paying attention to the world around him. This transformation is so profound that he even chances his name to Adrian.

Until one day, hope blossoms . A thief tries to break into his house and upon being caught by Kyle, ends up offering his own daughter Lindy to the beast on lieu of being sent to prison. Kyle accepts the offer. Lindy of course, turns out to be the girl he gave the rose at the beginning of the story to and he hopes she will love him one day. The relationship is difficult to start with because Lindy is effectively a prisoner and she hates being trapped. But they soon forge a friendship when they start to read and study together and Kyle falls in love hard but will Lindy love him back?

I liked that from the beast’s point of view, he does feel terrible about it all, at the same time that he sees no other way, perhaps this is his only chance to break the curse. We all know that the Beast eventually lets Lindy go and it is her choice to return for him. The same happens here but I felt that Lindy was less of a believable character and it is this second part that proves slightly problematic to me and somewhat diminished my enjoyment of the novel. I found that Lindy was too easy in forgiving Kyle/Adrian for ruining her life. Yes, so he rescued her from a life with a horrible father (who gave her away at the first sign of trouble) but still he made her a prisoner, made her lose her chance of getting a scholarship to college, something that was her one and only chance of getting away from her horrible life with her dad.

Furthermore Lindy is presented as being the ultimate good heroine: a martyr for her father, always taking care of him even when he beats her up and extremely naïve and innocence. There is one scene in particular when Kyle/Adrian takes her to the countryside to see the snow. Lindy’s reaction is that of a child, asking after only a couple of hours driving if they were “still in the USA”. Really? The girl is presented as a smart, intelligent, studious girl in the 21st century and she doesn’t know that there are OMG, mountains in the US? This is something that makes me angry, because it sounds as though a person cannot be “good” without being pathetically innocent. That somehow put the two in different level and makes it less of a believable romance in the end. This is why I think the movie seems to be promising: the trailer shows Lindy in a much more interesting light with a bit more of personality.

Still, fun is to be had as I enjoyed to read the story from the Beast’s point of view. And there are these really fun additions peppered throughout the novel of the “Unexpected Changes” chat group that Kyle attends online where he chats with other teenaged fairytale characters that are undergoing changes like the Little Mermaid (who is considering a transformation,) and froggy (who thinks he will never find a princess to kiss him) that were really creative.

Rating:6 – Good. Recommended with reservations

Forget You by Jennifer Echols

Publisher: MTV
Publication Date: July 20th 2010
Paperback: 293 pages

How did I get this book: an ARC from the author

WHY CAN’T YOU CHOOSE WHAT YOU FORGET . . . AND WHAT YOU REMEMBER? There’s a lot Zoey would like to forget. Like how her father has knocked up his twenty-four- year old girlfriend. Like Zoey’s fear that the whole town will find out about her mom’s nervous breakdown. Like darkly handsome bad boy Doug taunting her at school. Feeling like her life is about to become a complete mess, Zoey fights back the only way she knows how, using her famous attention to detail to make sure she’s the perfect daughter, the perfect student, and the perfect girlfriend to ultra-popular football player Brandon. But then Zoey is in a car crash, and the next day there’s one thing she can’t remember at all—the entire night before. Did she go parking with Brandon, like she planned? And if so, why does it seem like Brandon is avoiding her? And why is Doug—of all people— suddenly acting as if something significant happened between the two of them? Zoey dimly remembers Doug pulling her from the wreck, but he keeps referring to what happened that night as if it was more, and it terrifies Zoey to admit how much is a blank to her. Controlled, meticulous Zoey is quickly losing her grip on the all-important details of her life—a life that seems strangely empty of Brandon, and strangely full of Doug.

Review:

Forget You was one of my most anticipated reads of 2010 after I loved, no, adored this author’s 2009 book, Going Too Far, a novel that made my top 10 last year. Forget You turned out to be an extremely well written story that pulled me in, even when it shouldn’t have. I devoured it like a starved reader but the end result was nowhere near as emotionally satisfying as Going Too Far. Perhaps it is not fair to compare both novels or to come to this one with such high expectations but that is how things are, to pretend that it is not so, would do me no good. And who knows, to make this plain in this review, will perhaps help to enlighten why I felt the way I felt when reading it.

The way I see it, both novels are very similar, expect when it matters the most. Both are set in small towns where the characters live under the weight of expectations, of their pasts or with the mask they wear in public. Both follow a similar pattern, with secrets being slowly revealed to the reader about who the characters are, building tension towards the ending when conflicts are resolved. But whereas in Going Too Far the conflicts (both internal and external) were believable, relatable which made caring truly and deeply for the characters an easy ride, in Forget You they seemed contrived.

Zoey is the seemly perfect girl, from a moneyed family, a good student, member of the swim team at school; she has many friends, including a popular boy named Brandon and she is in control of her life, or tries to be. But she is faced with so many things out of her control: her father leaves to start a new family with a lover and her mother tries to commit suicide, and is sent to a mental institution to recover. Her father forbids her to tell anyone about her mother but she knows that the resident bad boy Doug, whom she has a difficult relationship with, has seen them at the hospital and she doesn’t know what he will do with the information.

The only thing that Zoey still has control of is her body and on the night of her mother’s suicide attempt, she decides to sleep and lose her virginity to Brandon. It is a quick, non eventful affair but Zoey is adamant that this one night with Brandon means something and that he is her boyfriend.

A few days later, she is involved in a car crash. She wakes up the next day with a concussion and with Doug, not Brandon behaving as though they have something going on between them and no memory of it. Her father –the winner of Worst Parent Award – leaves for his honeymoon, but not before threatening Zoey with a trip to the loony bin if she keeps on “pretending” to have amnesia. What a champ. But now she needs to put the pieces together and try to remember what happened that night.

The novel starts well enough, it is easy to understand why Zoey makes the choices she makes when she makes them, she is very, very human. And I love Jennifer Echols’ writing and the greatest similarity between her two dramatic novels and a positive one at it, is indeed her prose and the construction of the novel. If I were to compare with anything it would be with an impressionist painting: with small smidges of paint or in this case details that only become whole or understandable when you look at it from afar or once it is completed.

But this story proved to be less inspiring, less challenging than I hoped for…….the romance between Doug and Zoey is sweet but their connection seemed to be based more on lust. Not that there is anything wrong with that, hell no, but since they exchange I love you’s pretty soon, it didn’t feel believable.

And that is because the conflict felt extremely excessive and contrived. Life can be messy, complicated, and full of mistakes and bad decisions, I get that. But the one thing that prevented Zoey from forming a relationship with Doug, was her insistence that she is dating Brandon: even though they don’t talk, don’t see each other, never once discussed being together AND he is seeing another girl. Denial makes it an interesting part of it all, and the reason for that denial makes sense, but since Zoey is presented as an intelligent young girl, who, as his friend, KNEW Brandon’s propensity to jump from girl to girl, it felt like it was unnecessarily prolonged. Similarly, Doug is represented as being a bad boy but I saw literally ZERO proof of this. Yes, he spent some time at juvie but that was due to his horrendous father and there is absolutely nothing that concurs with this assessment. He is a good guy through and through, even when he makes his own mistakes.

The prose, the two characters who are so human (and saddled with poor excuse of a parents) make it for an interesting, enjoyable read but one that is not as emotional and satisfying as I hoped.

Rating: 6 – Good. Recommended with reservations

AND, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE HEREBY DECLARE:

THE BOOK SMUGGLERS’ YOUNG ADULT APPRECIATION MONTH OFFICIALLY OPEN.

Title: Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto

Author: Eric Luper

Genre: Contemporary YA

Publisher Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: June 8, 2010
Hardcover: 304 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand alone

Seth Baumgartner just had the worst day of his life.

His girlfriend dumped him (at Applebee’s), he spied his father on a date with a woman who is not his mother (also at Applebee’s!), and he lost his fourth job of the year. It’s like every relationship he cares about is imploding, and he can’t figure out what’s going on.

To find answers, Seth decides to start an anonymous podcast called The Love Manifesto, exploring “what love is, why love is, and why we’re stupid enough to keep going back for more.” Things start looking up when Seth gets a job at a golf club with his hilarious and smut-minded best friend, Dimitri, and Dimitri’s sister, Audrey. With their help, Seth tracks down his father’s mystery date, hits the most infamous bogey in the history of golf, and discovers that sometimes love means eating the worst chicken-salad sandwich you can ever imagine.

Why did I read the book: This book was on my radar for a few months. I liked the cover, the blurb and since I am on a contemporary YA kick, it was a no brainer.

How did I get the book: This was one of the books I most wanted to get when at BEA. I got a signed copy.

Review:

Seth Baumgartner is not having a good day. It starts with his girlfriend Veronica breaking up with him at Applebee’s, where he also sees his father having lunch and being too close to a woman-who-is-not-his-mother and it ends with him being fired from yet another job this summer – which doesn’t sit well with his very successful parents, especially his father. Seth then finds a new job at his Golf Club, where he is also training, alongside his best friend Dimitri, for the upcoming father-son competition. Meanwhile, Seth nurtures a broken heart and the horrible responsibility of knowing about his father which could lead to a broken home and that’s what makes him start a Love Manifesto podcast – where he anonymously, talks about the reasons why he loves Veronica and the steps he takes to investigate his father’s affair.

On the surface, Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto has some really interesting ideas and themes: young love (losing it and finding it again), how to deal with a cheating father, golf (have I ever read a YA book where the kid plays golf? No.), podcasting. In reality, the book just left me cold ad I am struggling right now to even remember parts of it even though I finished reading it three days ago. However, I do remember critical parts that did not sit well with me.

For example, Seth lies to Dimitri about why they are running around town following his father. The reason why he doesn’t tell his best friend is that he thinks that 30 years from now:

“Regardless of what happens between now and then – what schools I’ve gone to, what degrees I’ve gotten, or how many millions of dollars I’ve made – all that Dimitri will think about is how I’m that guy whose father cheated on his mother”

Really? That’s the reasoning? The guy is your best friend in the world and that is how you see his friendship? This is only one of the reasons why I couldn’t connect with Seth (and ultimately with the story). The themes of the book present a great opportunity to explore heartbreak, sadness, angst over parent’s marriage and to some extent this is done moderately well but right when things seemed to take a turn for the Great, something would happen to pull me out of the story. The example above is one of them; but there’s more: Seth started podcasting reasons why he loved Veronica and there were more than 100 and you know what? They are pretty cool, sweet reasons too including how she “got” him and or he “got” her. But then Veronica becomes a bitch and soon (way too soon) Seth is over her and falling for someone else. I do understand that we are talking about teenagers and love can be ephemeral – but the build up, the heartbreak, the reasons for loving her just become moot points.

Seth running around following his father and sleuthing sounded pretty silly too and what is the point of having an “anonymous” podcast if you will talk about things that will make it way too easy for people to know who you are? Those are only small things but to me, they don’t make a lot sense and bothered me. Plus, the book is supposed to be funny. I can tell the author really tries to, and Dimitri is supposed to be THE funny sidekick. But I did not laugh once and admittedly it is generally pretty easy to make me laugh.

Bottom line: it is not that the book is bad, but it is only…adequate. Harsh? Probably, but with so many good, awesome books out there, with so many waiting for me in my TBR, “adequate” is not going to cut it.

Notable Quotes/Parts: I earmarked this quote because I think it is a clear mark of the disengagement between the book and I. I am pretty sure this is supposed to be funny:

“Dimitri is not what I’d call fat, but he’s definitely carrying around some spare pounds. Let’s just say that if there were a sudden famine, he wouldn’t be the first to go – that is, unless all the skinny people got together and ate him”

Additional Thoughts: Two of the main themes of the book have been better explored (in my opinion) in two other books I read (and loved) this year. Mind you, these are not more “of the same”. Quite the contrary, each of these books could not be more different, but they are similar enough to make me think of them whilst reading Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto.

One is Delia Ephron’s wonderful The Girl With The Mermaid Hair

in which the protagonist’s father is also caught cheating. However, the way it is done, how the protagonist found out, the repercussions were truly, really heartbreaking. Also, there was no coup out or “explanation” for cheating (or presumed cheating) here – the father was indeed, a total sleazeball.

The other is An Abundance of Katherines by John Green,

in which the protagonist is ditched by his girlfriend and has an overweight, best friend who is in this case, TRULY hilarious. This book made me laugh so freaking much, plus it is a John Green novel so it comes with many layers of UTTER AWESOME.

Verdict: Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto has an interesting premise and universal themes that could have been fodder for a great book but its uninspired writing, unrelatable main character make for a merely adequate novel.

Rating: 5. Meh – Take it or leave it

Reading Next:Friend Is Not A Verb by Daniel Ehrenhaft

Title:Ten Things I Love About You

Stand alone or series: The novel is a sequel to What Happens in London but can be read as a stand alone.

Why did I read the book: I ADORE Julia Quinn’s books and have read every single one of them.

How did I get the book: I asked Piatkus for a review copy.

Review:

Julia Quinn is one of my favourite romance writers and having read every single one of her books, I was looking forward to her annual offering, especially since Ten Things I Love About You has tie ins with her previous novel, What Happens in London, a book I absolutely loved.

I could carry on like this but really, there is a better way to write this review:

Ten Things You Should Know About This Book:

One This is a Julia Quinn book, therefore it is well-written and light and funny as usual. It also follows her recent streak of having uncomplicated, almost conflict-free, love stories, that flow smoothly as the protagonists fall in love. I am very fond of this choice, as I love to see the beauty of watching two people falling in love with each other by simply talking and getting to know the other. Uncomplicated does not mean that it lacks complexity though, if you were wondering, although in this case, the complexity comes from the characters because

Two the plot is as simple as its blurb indicates and if you are a regular Romance reader, chances are: you have seen it before. Annabel, the heroine is the practical, country girl, with a huge family depending on her for financial support which lands her in the London’s marriage market. Her prospects are not that good given her poverty but she attracts the attention of the Earl of Newbury, some old dude who really needs an heir and given the fact that Annabel’s family is so prolific (she has 7 brothers and sisters), she seems to be the real deal. The Earl does have a presumptive heir, whom he loathes and that would be Sebastian Grey, the handsome rake with a secret on the side: he is the writer of Gothic Romances under the name of Sarah Gorely. Which brings me to:

Three one of the best things about the book is Sebastian’s secret. Back in What Happens in London,the bit where he reads from one of his novels was easily one of the most hilarious things I ever read. I was very much looking forward to seeing him as the writer, and how it would play out. Being a Gothic Romance writer is part of who he is and it was both funny and interesting (I loved seeing him coming up with storylines and titles for his books (I think my favourite is Miss Truesdale and the Silent Gentleman) and Julia Quinn is way clever as she incorporates in her own storytelling aspects of it and

Four that adds an interesting aspect of self-awareness to the procedures. For example in one particular scene Sebastian uses his fantastic imagination to come up with an explanation for Annabel’s behaviour at the beginning of the novel – when they first met – bear in mind that by this point he still doesn’t know that she might be getting married to his uncle. He surmises that she must have a dreadful suitor who must have attacked her in a dark corner only to scrap it because that would be too soon in the novel for such a drama which is HILARIOUS and self-deprecating since that is exactly what happens in the book. It basically opens with Annabel being attacked by the Earl who tries to kiss her and she flees into the night and ends up bumping into Sebastian. This is actually my least favourite set up of all Julia Quinn’s set ups because is based on the

Five “I just know” principle. Picture this: the book effectively starts as aforementioned with Annabel, a virgin on the marriage market, bumping into a man she does not know, in the middle of the night, outdoors, in the heath. She decides not to introduce herself but she “just knows” that this unknown person can be trusted not to attack her, compromise her, kill her, or all of the above. She just surmises that he is the sort of men who “knew women”, he surmises that she is the kind of woman that is “warm” and that is the principle of the whole thing and that’s how they get to

Six Talking. Despite the ridiculous set up (again, I can’t stand the “I just know” principle) , they do an immense amount of talking throughout the book and these talks range from witty repartee (and Julia Quinn does that really, really well) to in-depth heart to heart conversation. Sebastian opens up to Annabel about his difficulty getting over the War, for example, and that is the first time he ever tells anyone about it. If it looks like I am more fond of Sebastian, well, yes, I am. Because,

Seven Annabel did not rock my socks off. She is one of the quietest of Julia Quinn’s heroines, who usually tend to be feisty. I like quietly strong heroines and Annabel certainly has a lot on her shoulders and is very practical about it which I thought was great. But at times she comes across as too feeble, and my initial impression of her TSTL tendencies never really diminished that much.

Eight Also on the list of things I didn’t appreciate all that much: the villain is way too villainous and his reasoning for hating Sebastian was well, not very thought-out me thinks; Plus, Sebastian changes his mind about getting married way too fast and caught me totally by surprise….he changes his mind in two hours (even if those were momentous two hours – as he says)…

Nine but in the end, the good trumps the bad and I enjoyed myself very much whilst reading the novel. It might not be the most original of romance novels available right now, nor it is the best that Julia Quinn can offer but

Ten it IS a Julia Quinn novel after all, which means that is better than most offerings out there, better than most romance novels I read this year with at least two sequences that are made of awesome (and that includes the proposal scene – the second one).

Notable Quotes/Parts:

She was grinning from ear to ear.

Seb thought of all the ladies he’d met in London, the ones who would have looked on in horror, or disgust, or if they had any humor, would have been bitting back their smiles, or trying to hide them behind a hand.

But not Annabel. She smiled like she laughed, magnificent and grand. Her eyes, greenish-gray turned pewter in the evening light, sparkled with shared mischief. (…)

She was the type of woman a man wnated to come home to. No, she was the woman he wanted to come home to.

Verdict: Although not the best that Julia Quinn can offer, Ten Things I Love About You has enough good – of the light variety – in it to merit a few hours of your time.

Rating: 6 – Good

Reading Next: Looking for Alaska by John Green

“Inspirations and Influences” is a series of articles in which we invite authors to write guest posts talking about their…well, Inspirations and Influences. The cool thing is that the writers are given free reign so they can go wild and write about anything they want. It can be about their new book, series or about their career as a whole.

Today’s guest is Urban Fantasist & Romance author Jennifer Estep. Jennifer is the author of paranormal romance series Bigtime (Karma Girl, Hot Mama, & Jinx), but this year she has thrown her hat into the Urban Fantasy ring with her Elemental Assassin series. The first book in this new series, Spider’s Bite follows Gin Blanco, known better by her assassin moniker, Spider – she’s the best at her job in all of Ashland, and has the ability to work magic in the elements of stone and ice. The second book in the Elemental Assassin series, Web of Lies his stores next week on May 25th!

To celebrate the upcoming release, we have invited Ms. Estep to talk about her writing, influences and inspirations for her Elemental Assassins series. (Plus, we also have a giveaway)

Please give a warm welcome to Jennifer Estep!

Greetings and salutations! First of all, I want to say thanks to the Book Smugglers for inviting me to guest blog today. Thanks so much!

As some of you may know, I’m the author of the Bigtime superhero paranormal romance series – Karma Girl (2007), Hot Mama (2007), and Jinx (2008). I also write the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series and have three books coming out in that series this year – Spider’s Bite (which came out in February), Web of Lies (which debuts on May 25), and Venom (October).

The Smugglers asked me to talk a little bit about my writing inspirations and influences today, and one of the topics that they suggested was what got me interested in writing urban fantasy since I had previously written paranormal romances. So why did I switch to urban fantasy?

Well, the short answer is because I like kick-butt heroines.

I’ve always loved books, movies, and TV shows where the heroine is just as strong – if not stronger – than the guys around her. Buffy Summers, Sydney Bristow, Wonder Woman – these are the kinds of female characters that I admire, girls who are just as comfortable dressing up to go to a party as they are diffusing a nuclear bomb or saving the world from vampires, aliens, and other creepy crawlies.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the heroines in my Bigtime paranormal romance books are pretty kick-butt themselves, especially Fiona Fine, the star of Hot Mama. But I had been wanting to write something darker and grittier with an even tougher heroine for a while. I’ve also always liked reading about assassin characters in fantasy literature, and I figured that urban fantasy was a genre that would let me combine all these things at once. Plus, there are so many great heroines in urban fantasy, folks like Rachel Morgan and Karen Murphy, and I wanted to add my own character to the mix.

So I came up with my toughest heroine yet – Gin Blanco, an assassin known as the Spider. Gin makes no bones about the fact that she kills people for money, something that she’s very, very good at. I figured that if I was going to write an assassin character, I might as well go big or go home. There’s nothing worse than a whiny assassin.

As much as I like shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, it seems like vampires are everywhere these days, and I knew when I started writing Spider’s Bite that I wanted to have some different kinds of magic/creatures in my books as well. So I decided on vampires, giants, dwarves, and elementals, or folks who can control one of the four elements – Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone.

For the record, Gin happens to be a Stone and Ice elemental, meaning that she can control both of those elements. But she’s just as happy to introduce you to the sharp end of the five silverstone knives that she carries with her at all times as she is to blast you with her magic. Like Gin says, there are dozens of ways to help people quit breathing, and she doesn’t need her magic to help her with that.

I’ll admit that it’s been a bit of a challenge to write such an unapologetic assassin character like Gin and make her likable at the same time. Gin isn’t your typical hero – she’s not inherently good like a Sydney Bristow or Buffy Summers is. But you know what? Bad girls always have more fun anyway. I think Faith on Buffy is a prime example of that.

So there you have it. Some of my inspirations for my girl Gin Blanco and the Elemental Assassin series. Writing Gin’s adventures has been a blast so far, and I hope that folks have as much fun reading the books as I do writing them.

What about you guys? Who are some of your favorite heroines, urban fantasy or otherwise? Share in the comments.

About Jennifer:

Jennifer’s books have been fea­tured in Cos­mopoli­tan, Enter­tain­ment Weekly, South­ern Liv­ing, and a vari­ety of other publications.

You can read more about Jennifer on her website, or catch her on her blog.

Giveaway Details:

We are giving away TEN AUTOGRAPHED copies of Spider’s Bite and Web of Lies to ten lucky winners! The contest is open to residents of the US and Canada only and will run until May 29 at 11:59 PM (PST). To enter, leave a comment here answering Jennifer’s question – who are some of your favorite heroines, fantasy or otherwise? Only one entry per person please! Good luck!

Title: The Iron King

Author: Julie Kagawa

Genre: (Contemporary) Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance

Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publication Date: February 2010
Paperback: 368 pages

In less than twenty-four hours Meghan Chase will be sixteen. Countless stories, songs and poems have been written about this wonderful age, when a girl finds true love and the stars shine for her and the handsome prince carries her off into the sunset.

But Meghan suspects that it won’t be that way for her.

After all, Meghan has a secret destiny—one she could never have imagined….

Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan’s life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school…or at home.

When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she’s known is about to change.

But she could never have guessed the truth—that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and a pawn in a deadly war.

Now Meghan will learn just how far she’ll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face…and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.

Stand alone or series: Book 1 of the Iron Fey trilogy

How did I get this book: Review Copy

Why did I read this book: Ana and I have had our eyes on The Iron King since we first heard about it back in February – and when we were contacted to review the book and interview the author, we jumped at the opportunity!

Review:

Meghan Chase doesn’t expect anyone to remember her sweet sixteen (her stepfather can barely remember that Meghan exists, and her mother is always distracted) save her half brother, four-year old Ethan, and her best friend and neighbor, Robbie. But on the eve of her birthday, strange things begin to happen. First, there’s the incident in the computer lab while Meghan is tutoring the hottest guy at school, culminating in her complete humiliation. Then, there’s the loyal family dog that, completely out of the blue, attacks Ethan and has to be put down. And finally, after the attack, Ethan seems to change. Even the solid Robbie, the boy Meghan has known forever is not what he seems. Meghan soon learns that a changeling has been left in her younger brother’s place, and that she must venture into a world she never knew existed – the realm of faerie, called “the nevernever.” With the fey Robbie (or, rather, Robin) as her guide, Meghan learns she herself is half-fey and the daughter of Oberon, king of the Seelie Fey, and finds herself entangled in the threads of fey politics. If she means to save her brother, and herself, she’ll have to face opposition from all sides – including a coldly beautiful fey princeling of the Unseelie named Ash, who has already tried to kill Meghan before.

The Iron King is a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, this is an entertaining novel with a few great ideas (in particular, the emergence and story behind the Iron Fey). Ms. Kagawa has also mapped out the trilogy wonderfully, moving the plot of this first book deftly and ending the novel on a tantalizing hook for the next book in the series. On the other hand, The Iron King suffers from a lack of originality and a lackluster “love story.”

In terms of plotting and worldbuilding, there really isn’t too much ground that hasn’t been covered in the faerie/contemporary fantasy realm, so in defense of The Iron King, it’s not that the world is bad. It’s simply been done before – and to be perfectly fair, if I hadn’t read so many new faerie type stories, I would probably have enjoyed The Iron King much more. The realm of Nevernever is populated by famous fey faces throughout literature – Oberon and Titania, Mab and Robin Goodfellow (aka Puck). Ogres and trolls and cheshire cats and mermaids, you name it, it’s here in The Iron King. None of these elements are really used in any new way though, so while the world makes sense and Ms. Kagawa’s descriptions are more than apt, it all feels very…familiar. Even the storyline with a girl that thought she was mortal discovering she is fey has been done many times before, and, in most cases, better (see Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr, Need by Carrie Jones, Wings by Aprilynne Pike).

In that same vein, the main characters of The Iron King also feel a little stilted and familiar. As a heroine, I loved that Meghan is very much a teenage girl – her heart is in the right place as she tries to save her half-brother, and she clearly doesn’t know anything about the fey, her past, or how faeries tend to like to make nasty power bargains. Over the course of the book, however, Meghan’s helplessness becomes grating (but this, perhaps is simply a matter of personal taste). Ash is basically interchangeable with any other broody-mc-brooderson, hot, paranormal dude from any number of paranormal books. The romance between these two characters, in my opinion, felt forced and ridiculous. I found myself scratching my head, wondering why these two characters fell in love. From disdain and hate, Ash suddenly is vulnerable and in love with Oberon’s half-human welp because….? (And on this note, is there really a “love triangle” in this book? Puck, as fun as he is, hardly seems to be in the picture) The other thing I have to confess to being exhausted of (and incredibly icked out by) the eons-old sexy dude falling in love with…a fifteen-year old girl. Again, this is a matter of personal taste, and I think I’m safely in the minority – so fans of these sorts of tropes and romances will doubtless be pleased. Despite my tepid feelings towards the main characters, I do have to say that Puck is very…pucklike and awesome, and I did enjoy seeing the celebrities of the fey realm in this book. Oberon and Titania are written wonderfully, and true to form.

I should mention that there was one shining moment of originality in The Iron King which swayed my underwhelmed reaction to the book up until that point. I *loved* the idea of the Iron Fey and their backstory.

“Puck, didn’t you tell me once that the fey were born from the dreams of mortals?”

“Yeah?” Puck said, not getting it.

“Well, what if these things –” I jiggled the metal insect “–are born from different dreams? Dreams of technology, and progress? Dreams of science?

Fascinating, and more original than anything else in the book (even if this concept has also been done before in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods).

(Of course, Meghan then goes on to say, “What if the pursuit of ideas that once seemed impossible — flight, steam engines, the Worldwide Web,” which had me giggling for a good few minutes. The Worldwide Web is one I haven’t heard since eighth grade)

The only drawback to this new iteration of the fey? The uncomfortable and poorly planned “message” behind the Iron Fey. From what is in the book, there’s this uncomfortable impression that ‘Technology MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS! Because it is EEEEEEVIL!’ Which, let’s face it, is a little bit silly. Perhaps this is something that will be addressed in future books? I’m intrigued enough to find out.

All that said, all my gripes aside, I enjoyed The Iron Fey and will most likely pick up the second novel in the series, just to see where Ms. Kagawa takes the story. There is potential here, however rough and buried it may be.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

Ten years ago, on my sixth birthday my father disappeared.

No, he didn’t leave. Leaving would imply suitcases and empty drawers, and late birthday cards with ten-dollar bills stuffed inside. Leaving would imply he was unhappy with Mom and me, or that he found a new love elsewhere. None of that was true. He also did not die, because we would’ve heard about it. There was no car crash, no body, no police mingling about the scene of a brutal murder. It all happened very quietly.

On my sixth birthday, my father took me to the park, one of my favorite places to go at that time. It was a lonely little park in the middle of nowhere, with a running trail and a misty green pond surrounded by pine trees. We were at the edge of the pond, feeding the ducks, when I heard the jingle of an ice cream truck in the parking lot over the hill. When I begged my dad to get me a Creamsicle, he laughed, handed me a few bills, and sent me after the truck.

That was the last time I saw him.

Later, when the police searched the area, they discovered his shoes at the edge of the water, but nothing else. They sent divers into the pond, but it was barely ten feet down, and they found nothing but branches and mud at the bottom. My father had disappeared without a trace.

For months afterward, I had a recurring nightmare about standing at the top of that hill, looking down and seeing my father walk into the pond. As the water closed over his head, I could hear the ice cream truck singing in the background, a slow, eerie song with words I could almost understand. Every time I tried to listen to them, however, I’d wake up.

Not long after my father’s disappearance, Mom moved us far away, to a tiny little hick town in the middle of the Louisiana bayou. Mom said she wanted to “start over,” but I always knew, deep down, that she was running from something.

It would be another ten years before I discovered what.

My name is Meghan Chase.

In less than twenty-four hours, I’ll be sixteen years old.

You can read the first three chapters online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: As we mentioned earlier today, book 2 in the Iron Fey series, titled The Iron Daughter is out in stores this August. Here’s a rundown of the story:

Half Summer faery princess, half human, Meghan Chase has never fit in anywhere. Deserted by the Winter prince she thought loved her, she is prisoner to the Winter faery queen.

As war looms between Summer and Winter, Meghan knows that the real danger comes from the Iron fey—ironbound faeries that only she and her absent prince have seen. But no one believes her.

Worse, Meghan’s own fey powers have been cut off. She’s stuck in Faery with only her wits for help. Trusting anyone would be foolish. Trusting a seeming traitor could be deadly.

But even as she grows a backbone of iron, Meghan can’t help but hear the whispers of longing in her all-too-human heart.

But there’s more! On June 1, there will be a free novella available in the Iron Fey series, titled Winter Passage. From Julie Kagawa:

Julie has a FREE novella available online only, WINTER’S PASSAGE, available June 1, 2010. It’s a continuation of Meghan’s story that you won’t find in print! “Meghan Chase used to be an ordinary girl…until she discovered that she is really a faery princess. After escaping from the clutches of the deadly Iron fey, Meghan must follow through on her promise to return to the equally dangerous Winter Court with her forbidden love, Prince Ash. But first, Meghan has one request: that they visit Puck–Meghan’s best friend and servant of her father, King Oberon–who was gravely injured defending Meghan from the Iron Fey.Yet Meghan and Ash’s detour does not go unnoticed. They have caught the attention of an ancient, powerful hunter–a foe that even Ash may not be able to defeat….An eBook exclusive story from Julie Kagawa’s Iron Fey series.”

Make sure to check it out, via the series’ official website.

Rating: 6 – Good, Recommended with Reservations

Reading Next: Spells by Aprilynne Pike

Today we have a spotlight on debut author Julie Kagawa and her Young Adult paranormal Iron Fey series, which begins with The Iron King, a story about a seemingly normal girl with a not-so-normal destiny, caught in the tangled web of fey politics. To celebrate the upcoming release of The Iron Daughter, we have Julie over for a chat, and later in the day we will be reviewing The Iron King!

Ladies and gents, please give a warm welcome to Julie Kagawa!

The Book Smugglers: Thank you for the taking the time to chat with us, Julie, and welcome to our blog! Your debut novel, The Iron King, has been out since February. How does it feel to be a published author?

Julie: Completely amazing! It’s still so surreal for me, to walk into a store and see my book on the shelves. And I can still tell myself: “I got a book published,” and start giggling hysterically.

The Book Smugglers: Before selling your book, you used to be a professional dog trainer to pay the rent. Would you say that there are any transferable skills between the two?

Julie: Patience. It takes patience and hard work, both to train a dog and to write a novel. Neither will happen immediately, but if you keep at it, you’ll start to see results.

The Book Smugglers: Books about Faeries are a quite popular trend at the moment – can you tell us about your world of the Iron Fey? How do you see it standing out from the crowd, and how does it fit with traditional fey mythology? Did you do any research to create the world for your book?

Julie: When I started writing The Iron King, I wanted to do something different with faeries. I knew and loved the traditional mythology—the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, Oberon, Mab, and Puck—but I wanted to introduce a type of faery no one had seen before. So I thought: what are the Fey afraid of? The answer to that question was iron, so what if there was a type of faery that was completely immune to iron? Then I remembered we already have “monsters” living in machines: gremlins, bugs, virus, ect. And from that thought, the Iron Fey were born.

The Book Smugglers: You seem to have gathered quite the following in the few months since your book has been released – fans of the love triangle in your stories are already firmly divided into Team Puck and Team Ash. How do you see this divide and this passion for your characters? And if we may be cheeky, which team are YOU on?

Julie: I know, it’s crazy! Again, it’s completely surreal for me that people are arguing over Ash and Puck. I think as writers, we love our characters like our own kids, and if a character becomes so real and loved that readers will actually split into teams over them, we couldn’t be prouder.

(And, for the record, I’m afraid I’m Team Ash. Sorry, Puck fans. I love all my kids, but I have a thing for bad boys. *ducks and hides*)

The Book Smugglers: The second novel in the Iron Fey series, The Iron Daughter, will be in stores this August. Can you tell us what we can expect from this second book? Any tantalizing tidbits you might be able to share?

Julie: The Iron Daughter explores more of the complex relationships between Meghan, Ash, and Puck. Also, Meghan gets a few unexpected allies, discovers something about her past, and must make a difficult choice in the end. And if I say anything else, I’m afraid I’ll give away spoilers.

The Book Smugglers: On your website you have listed book that you like and amongst them are YA books by Melissa Marr and Holly Black as well as classic Fantasy by Greg Keyes and Robin Hobb. These are all Fantasy books – is Fantasy the genre that you read the most? Do you have any other favorites you’d like to share?

Julie: Fantasy was my first love, and it is the genre I read the most. But I’m trying to branch out into different areas like YA contemporary fiction. Two really good contemporary fiction novels I’ve read recently are 20 Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and Sea by Heidi Kling.

The Book Smugglers: The YA genre has been experiencing a pretty crazy boom in popularity and crossover appeal over the past few years. Why did you choose to write a young adult novel? Do you have any intention of writing for adults one day?

Julie: I tried writing an adult fantasy novel before The Iron King was published. But even then, all my characters were young. I love YA because you can do anything; nothing is too strange or too weird or too out-there. And YA readers are so passionate about books. They love reading and they love the characters, to the point where those characters almost become real. That passion is inspiring, and I think I’ll be writing YA for a long, long time.

The Book Smugglers: Let’s talk covers (a subject near and dear to our hearts). You have been blessed by the Cover Gods as the covers for The Iron King and The Iron Daughter are lovely. Did you have any say in the creation of the cover? And on the other side of the equation – as a reader, do covers matter to you when buying a book?

Julie: I was incredibly lucky to get such gorgeous covers, and I love each and every one of them, but I had very little input in the making of said covers. All credit goes to the fabulous, talented people at Harlequin Teen. I do have to admit, I’m a sucker for a pretty cover. I won’t say I’ve gone so far as to buy a book on the cover alone (okay, maybe once), but it definitely goes a long way in whether or not I pick the book off the shelf.

The Book Smugglers: The zombies are coming! The zombies are coming! You only have time to save ONE book, ONE movie, and ONE TV show. QUICK! What are they?

Julie: AH! Okay, um, Poison Study by Maria Snyder, Kung Fu Hustle (for laughs, you need to keep your sense of humor in the zombie apocalypse), and Man Vs. Wild (To learn how to live off the land by eating live frogs and snakes).

Also, a sawed off shotgun.

The Book Smugglers: According to your blog, you happen to also be an avid gamer! What is you all time favorite game? Do you have a favorite console or platform?

Julie: Uh oh. Don’t get me started on video games; we could be here all week. My favorite game of all time has to be Final Fantasy VIII, but Final Fantasy X is a close second. (Both made me sob horribly at the end, a mark of an excellent game in my eyes.) I don’t have a favorite console, because there are awesome games on all of them, but I will say I use my Wii the least.

The Book Smugglers: We Book Smugglers are faced with constant threats and criticisms from our significant others concerning the sheer volume of books we purchase and read – hence, we have resorted to ’smuggling books’ home to escape scrutinizing eyes. Have you ever had to smuggle books?

Julie: Fortunately, I have a wonderful husband who reads even more than I do. Although, our book buying techniques tend to be very different. He will buy one book, read it, and finish it before he even considers buying another one. I, on the other hand, tend to read several books at once. We’ll be at the bookstore and I’ll choose a book, and my husband will ask: “don’t you have a book you have to finish?” Yes I do, my love, but that is not the point. I’m GOING to read this book someday, I’ll just add it to my TBR.

He humors me, though, so I haven’t had to smuggle books home.

Yet.

Where you can find Julie:
Website: www.juliekagawa.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jkagawa
Iron Fey series site: http://enterthefaeryworld.com/ironfey/

The Book Trailer:

The Iron King

About Julie Kagawa:

Julie Kagawa was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine, she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn’t getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish and the odd eel.

When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time, but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a real job.

To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dog trainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full-time.

Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks is at an all-time low. She lives with her husband, two obnoxious cats, one Australian shepherd who is too smart for his own good and the latest addition, a hyperactive papillon puppy.

Giveaway Details:

Courtesy of Big Honcho Media, we are giving away ONE copy of The Iron King to a lucky reader! This book giveaway is open to participants with a United States mailing address only (international readers can enter if they have a friend in the States who can accept their prizes by mail). The contest will run until June 4 at 11:59 PM (PST). Entry is easy – simply leave a comment here, letting us know what your favorite fey book or story is your favorite. Only ONE comment per person, please! Multiple and duplicate comments (and ISPs) will be disqualified – even if you are leaving another comment to let us know that you forgot to leave your email address, you WILL be disqualified. Good luck!