The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games movie comes out March 23^rd. Lan at The Write Obsession and I are planning on doing a month long celebration of the book.  We are planning giveaways, book and movie reviews among other things.  If  you want to be a part of it, either post a comment on here or send me an e-mail.  I am going to be reviewing the districts and characters of the book.  I will say now, that what I will be putting up isn't my information, but stuff I found on the internet from various sites.

The Mail Still Runs Teaser

In 2011, I reviewed Far From the War by Jeffrey David Payne, a book that I was very surprised with.  The sequel is coming out in Summer 2012 and here is a teaser trailer.  It doesn't tell you much about the book, but I am excited about it nonetheless.  Here is the blurb from Roche Harbor Books' website:

The second installment of the Far From The War series shows how the war effects Esther's family back at home on Orcas Island. Told through the eyes of her sister Charlotte, this volume shows the family's anguish as they wait for Esther's return and how desperate neighbors disrupt their idyllic life on the island.

In My Mailbox and Updates

I like it when I read other blogs and find new ideas.  I was reading The Write Obsession and Lan did a post called Monday Updates that I liked, so I decided to make my mailbox and updates into one post.  It seems like I haven't done a lot of stuff with the blog recently, so I thought I should post what I have been up to.  First, though, in my mailbox this week:

If I Die by Rachel Vincent
Blood Bound by Rachel Vincent
Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep
Kiss of Frost by Jennifer Estep

I must say that the Blood Bound book is the smallest book that I have seen in awhile.  The above photo doesn't do it justice.

 Fallen In Love by Lauren Kate

I received this book from the publisher in a contest that I won.  I already have this book in hardcover.  That can only mean one thing:  Giveaway!!

Updates

• I have been reading and reviewing a lot of books for upcoming tours.  When I review books for tours, my posts are set on a specific date, so that is why I haven't posted many reviews recently.  Also, some publishers specify how soon before a release that you can post your review.  Ideally, they want it as close to the release date as possible to gain the most publicity for the book.
• I have received a few review copies of books in the mail that are not the first in the series.  I am one who likes to read a series from the beginning to really understand the story line.  So, I've had to buy a few books and read them so I can read the review copies. 

• I've been selected to participate in the World Book Night.  If you don't know what that is, you can go here and it will give you all the details.  Basically, you hand out a specific number of books to people.  The books are donated and you don't have to pay anything...well, maybe gas to go and pick up your books.  Anyway, I don't know what books I am getting yet.  I had to choose my top three.  I think it is neat that those chose April 23 in honor of the anniversaries of both Cervantes' and Shakespeare's deaths.

Isle of Night

Publisher: New American Library / Penguin

Publish Date: already out

Series: The Watchers

Other books in Series: Vampires Kiss (3/6/2012); Blood Fever (08/2012)

Is life offering fewer and fewer options? Then join the dead.

When Annelise goes off to college, it means good riddance to her abusive father and stepmother, but a bureaucratic screwup leaves her without a high school diploma, flat broke, and facing a future that seems more elusive than ever.  Then she meets Ronan - tall, dark, and way to seductive for her own good.  He promises Annelise a new life...if she has the courage to change the unknown.  One look at him, and she certainly has the desire.  He offers her a lift, and sure enough, accepting rides from strangers does yield surprises.

Whisked away to a mysterious island in the North Sea, Annelise is pitted against other female recruits in tests of skill, smarts, and strength.  To win is to become a member of the Watchers, a unique elite partnership with vampires that dispatches its teams on the most dangerous missions imaginable.  It's not exactly what Annelise had in mind for a new beginning, but it's livelier than the alternative.  Because on the Isle of Night, to lose a challenge doesn't mean just dishonor.  It means death.

Let the games begin.

Annelise Drew lives in Christmas, Florida with her father and her step-mother.  She cannot wait to leave this abusive home and go to University of Florida in Gainesville where she got a full scholarship.  When she gets there, things don’t go as planned.  She tries to register for classes and cannot due to a new rule that they made at her old high school: she has to pass a swim test.  Annelise, who goes by Drew, doesn’t swim.  She doesn’t know how and is afraid of the water.  It is there that she meets Ronan.  At first, she sees him in the registration office.  When she finds out she cannot register for college, she goes back out to her car and then sees Ronan again.  When her car doesn’t start, she agrees to let Ronan give her a ride.  Little does she know that the ride will change her life.

Ronan talks her into getting on a plane and traveling to Eyja næturinnar or the Isle of Night.  This is a place where Annelise will compete against other women who were specifically chosen to become a watcher.  Annelise was chosen for this because she is a genius. This is where she first learns of vampires and that they are not the cute kind that you normally see in movies.  Annelise soon realizes that it is either win or die on the Isle of Night.  They have strange rules and even stranger classes.  The culmination of this is when they have the Directorate Award competition.  Will Acari Drew (as she is called on the Isle of Night) win or die?

I origianally read Isle of Night because I was sent the sequel, Vampire’s Kisses, to review.  I don’t like to read other books in a series without starting from the beginning.  You lose a lot of what the book entails when you do that.  When I first read the first line of the synopsis, I was drawn in and anxious to read it.  I couldn’t put Isle of Night down!  It was that good.  It was nice because it had vampires in it, but it wasn’t what you normally think of vampire/ya/romance book to be like.  I think Bram Stoker would be proud of the vampires in The Watchers series.

While I was reading this book, I kept looking back at the cover.  A good cover will do just that: it will make you involve in the book.  The cover has Annelise and Ronan on it.  Below them is a castle of sorts.  I like the colors on this cover.  I also like the fact that both Annelise’s and Ronan’s eyes stand out and they look mysterious.

•Annelise Drew.  She is the main character in The Watcher series.  It starts out by describing a little of her childhood, her abusive father and how she had to overcome this along with being a genius.  It doesn’t wear her down.  She still shows good attributes, good priorities and knows what is important.  She is, mind  you, young (having just graduated from high school) and shows it in her actions sometimes.  Nevertheless, she is a good character.

•Ronan.  What can you say about Ronan?  According to the cover of the book, he is nice to look at.  He is so much more though.  Annelise gets to know him a little in the book, but there is still a lot of mystery that surrounds him.  He is her Tracer and that brings different responsibilities.  In this book, it looks as though Ronan is torn, but he tries to lead Annelise in the right direction.  He still calls her Annelise, even though he is supposed to call her Acari Drew.

•Amanda.  She is Annelise’s proctor.  She tries to make things easier for Annelise and explains things to her that she wouldn’t know otherwise.

•Yasuo and Emma.  These are the two friends that she makes while on the Isle.  They are loyal to her.

•Lilac Von Straubing.  From the very beginning, Annelise and Lilac don’t get along.  Lilac nicknamed Annelise “charity case” after a shirt she was wearing which is later shortened to “charity.”  Annelise calls her “bunny,” but later decides on another nickname.  Lilac is out to get Annelise and wants her dead.

•The Vampires.  They are eerie.

A Celebration: A Wrinkle in Time 50th Anniversary & Giveaway

Publisher: Macmillan

Publish Date: 1962

Series: Time

Other Books in Series: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, An Acceptable Time

It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.

"Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me be on my way. Speaking of way, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract".

A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusal book.

When I first read A Wrinkle in Time, I loved it!  I don't think I understood how timeless it really was.  After hearing about the celebration planned for the birthday of the book, I knew that I had to get in on that.  February 13, 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the first publication of A Wrinkle in Time.

I loved reading it again.  I must admit that I haven't read all the books in the Time Quintet, but Wrinkle is one of my favorite books of all time.  I was going to write up a review on the book, but I'm not sure I could do it the justice it deserves.  At the beginning of my copy of the book, there is "An Appreciation" written and I am putting that on here because I love it's description.  Happy 50th birthday A Wrinkle in Time!!

An Appreciation by Anna Quindlen

The most memorable books from our childhoods are those that make us feel less alone, convince us that our own foibles and quirks are both as individual as a fingerprint and as universal as an open hand.  That’s why I still have the copy of A Wrinkle in Time that was given to me when I was twelve years old.  It long ago lost its dust jacket, the fabric binding is loose and water stained, and the soft and loopy signature on its inside cover bears little resemblance to the way I sign my name today.  The girl who first owned it has grown up and changed, but the book she loved, though battered, is still magical.

It’s heroine is someone who feels very much alone indeed.  Meg Murray has braces glasses, and flyaway hair.  She can’t seem to get anything right in school, where everyone things she is strange and stupid.  And she runs up against some real nastiness at a young age in the form of all those snide looks and comments about her father, a scientist who seems to have mysteriously vanished – or, town gossip has it, run off with another woman.

But Meg doesn’t know real evil until she sets out on a journey to find her father and bring him home, along with her little brother, Charles Wallace, and a boy named Calvin.  As they transcend time, space, and the limitations of their own minds, they get help from individuals of great goodness:  Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Which, Mrs Who, the Happy Medium, and Aunt Beast.  But the climax of their journey is a showdown with IT, the cold and calculating disembodied intelligence that has cast a black shadow over the universe in its quest to make everyone behave and believe the same.

If that sounds like science fiction, it’s because that’s one way to describe the story.  Or perhaps you could call it the fiction of science.  The action of the books, the search for Meg and Charles Wallace’s missing father, relies on something called a tesseract, which is a way to travel through time and space using a fifth dimension.  Although there’s even a little illustration to make it easier to visualize, I still am not certain I do.  Of course, Meg, who is so bright she can do square roots in her head, doesn’t entirely understand it either.  “For just a moment I got it !” she says.  “I can’t possibly explain it now, but for a second I saw it!”

The truth is, I’m not a fan of science fiction, and my math and physics gene has always been weak.  But there’s plenty in the book for those of us predisposed toward the humanities as well.  Mrs Who, who remedies her language deficit by using the words of others to explain herself, quotes Dante, Euripides, and Cervantes, to name just a few.  When Meg is trying to keep IT from invading her brain, she realizes the multiplication tables are too rote to do the trick and instead shouts out the opening of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”  IT retorts that that’s exactly the point: “Everybody exactly alike.”  Meg replies triumphantly, “No! Like and equal are not the same thing at all!”

Madeleine L’Engle published Wrinkle in 1962, after it was rejected by dozens of publishers.  And her description of the tyranny of conformity clearly reflects that time.  The identical houses outside which identical children bounce balls and jump rope in mindless unison evoke the fear so many American’s had of Communist regimes that enshrined the interests of state-mandated order over the rights of the individual.  “Why do you think we have wars at home?” Charles Wallace asks his sister, channeling the mind of IT.   “Why do you think people get confused and unhappy?  Because they all live their own separate individual lives.”  He tells Meg what she already knows from her own everyday battles: “Differences create problems.”

But While L’Engle’s story may have originally been inspired by the gray sameness of those Communist countries, it still feels completely contemporary today, except maybe for Meg’s desire for a typewriter to get around her dreadful penmanship.  The Murray home is fractured by Mr. Murrays’ mysterious absence and Meg’s “mother sleeping alone in the great double bed.”  Calvin may look like a golden boy, but his family barely notices he’s alive.  Even more timeless is the sense Meg has of herself as someone who doesn’t fit in, who does “everything wrong.”  Conformity knows no time or place; it is the struggle all of us face, to be ourselves despite the overwhelming pressure to be like everyone else.  Perhaps one of the most compelling and moving descriptions of that internal battle comes near the end of the book, when Mrs Whatsit tells the children that life, with its rules, it obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet:  “You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.  What you say is completely up to you.”

On its surface, this is a book about three children who fight an evil force threatening their planet.  But it is really about a more primal battle all human beings face, to respect, defend, and love themselves.  When Meg pulls the ultimate weapon from her emotional arsenal to fight, for her little brother and for good, it is a great moment, not just for her, but for every reader who has ever felt overlooked, confused, alone.  It has been more than four decades since I first read A Wrinkle in Time.  If I could tesser, perhaps in some different time and place I would find a Meg Murray just my age, a grown woman with an astonishing brain, a good heart, and a unique perspective on how our differences are what makes life worth living.  Oh, how I would like to meet her!

What would a birthday celebration be without presents?  I am hosting a giveway so the readers of YABR can enjoy the book as much as I have.  What are the prizes?  I'm glad you asked...

• 2 prizes of: T-Shirt (size large), bookmark, button, a copy of A Wrinkle in Time
• 2 prizes of: Tote bag, button, bookmark, a copy of A Wrinkle in TIme
• 3 prizes of: A Wrinkle in Time: 50th Anniversary Commemoritive Edition, poster, button, bookmark
• 7 prizes of: button, bookmark
• 20 prizes of: bookmark

 All prizes except the books were donated by Macmillan for the 50th Anniversary Celebration.



●Names will be drawn by random.org that is within rafflecopter.  Winners will be notified by e-mail and will have 48 hours to respond or you forfeit your prize.
●Contest is international.
●Must be at least 13 years old to enter.
●I reserve the right to cancel the contest at any time without notice.
●I am not responsible to prizes lost or damaged in the postal system.  I try to package things so this doesn’t happen, but the postal system isn’t infallible.

In My Mailbox

In my mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren.  I try to do this every week, but sometimes it just doesn't happen.  All links will lead you to the Goodreads description of the book.

Vampire's Kiss (The Watchers #2) by Veronica Woff - I received for review from The Penguin Group

Cracked by K.M. Walton - Won from The Story Siren  I also received bookmarks, magnet and a keychain.

Bought:
Horizon by Sopie Littlefield
Harbinger by Sarah Wilson Etienne
Isle of Night (The Watchers #1) by Veronica Wolff
The Giver by Lois Lowry

Author Interview – Aubrie Dionne

Aubrie is an author and flutist in New England. Her stories have appeared in Mindflights, Niteblade, Silver Blade, A Fly in Amber, and several print anthologies including Skulls and Crossbones by Minddancer Press, Rise of the Necromancers, by Pill Hill Press, Nightbird Singing in the Dead of Night by Nightbird Publishing, Dragontales and Mertales by Wyvern Publications, A Yuletide Wish by Nightwolf Publications, and Aurora Rising by Aurora Wolf Publications. Her epic fantasy is published with Wyvern Publications, and several of her ebooks are published with Lyrical Press and Gypsy Shadow Publishing. When she’s not writing, she plays in orchestras and teaches flute at Plymouth State University and a community music school.

As part of her blog tour for the New Dawn series, Aubrie answered some questions that I had for her.

YABR: What inspires you when you write? 

AD: I'm inspired by watching awesome movies. I think of a book as a movie in my head. It's the best kind, because I can imagine everything how I'd want it to be, and how I'd want the characters to look. Some of my favorite movies are the original Star Wars trilogy, the Lord of the Rings movies, Star Trek Generations, all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and the recent Jane Eyre movie.

YABR: Do you base your characters off of real people?  Do you have a process for coming up with characters?

AD: Every one of my characters has a little bit of me in them. It's kinda scary when I look at them and recognize it myself! I don't base them off real people because I don't think my family or friends would like that! *wink wink*

YABR: Do you ever experience writer’s block and how do you get over it? 

AD: All of the time. If I sit at the computer for too long, I get blocked. That's when I take a walk with my dogs, do laundry, practice my flute, then it frees up the ideas. 

YABR: What type/genre of books do you like to read? 

AD: I read all genres, but science fiction and fantasy are my favorites! 

YABR: Who is your favorite character in the New Dawn series and why? 

AD: Actually, it's the bad guy, Tiff, Striker's ex girlfriend. She's the character with the most flaws, and the one that grows the most over the entire book. I loved her so much, I brought her back as a  grandmother in my YA tie in (currently being shopped around to publishers!)

YABR: The New Dawn series is something that is not mainstream Sci-Fi, where did you get the ideas for the series? 

AD: I worry about the end of the world all the time. I wonder what people are going to do when Earth becomes uninhabitable or overrun with people. What if people could live their whole lives on colony ships and pass down their DNA to future generations able to colonize other planets? 

YABR: How would you describe the New Dawn series to someone who has never read it before?

AD: It's a space opera, complete with space ships, laser battles, mysterious aliens, monstrous creatures, space pirates, desert planets, ince worlds, jungles, everything you'd expect. 

YABR: Favorite color 

AD: Blue. My eyes are blue, so when I wear blue, it brings them out. Also, my room from my childhood was blue. 

YABR: Favorite holiday/season 

AD: Summer!!! Beach bum all the way. I'd burn my snow boots if I could. 

YABR: Word that best describes you and why

AD: Creative. I chose two careers that require a lot of creative energy: flute and writing. 

YABR: Optimist or pessimist

AD: Optimist! Every one of my books ends happily for most of the characters involved.

YABR: Favorite author/book/series

AD: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte   

YABR: Favorite food/drink

AD: Pizza and coffee, but not together!  

YABR: Favorite place to read/write

AD: The computer!

YABR: Favorite pizza topping

AD: Vegetables! I'm a vegetarian and I LOVE vegetables!  

Title: A Hero Rising (A New Dawn, #3)
Author: Aubrie Dionne
Genre: Sci-Fi Romance
Length: novella
Release Date: February 2012

Prequel to A New Dawn - Book Three

After watching his love leave on a colony ship, James Wilfred must save those left behind from a planetary apocalypse. Their salvation lies in an unfinished ship tucked away in a secret government base, and only James can break in and pilot him and his people to freedom on a nearby space station.

Skye O’Connor’s boyfriend never returns after his gang attempts an assassination of the Governor, and the State Building is destroyed. Worse, crazed moonshiners addicted to the chemical Morpheus have stormed the city, and she must find a safe place for her and her boyfriend’s daughter. When a heroic man saves her, Skye asks to accompany him on his quest to find the last colony ship left on Earth.

As the city falls around them, James and Skye must work together to build a new future, all the while rediscovering their ability to love, before the apocalypse claims them both.

Title: Tundra 37 (A New Dawn, #2)
Author: Aubrie Dionne
Genre: Sci-Fi Romance
Length: 288 pages
Release Date: February 7, 2012

Gemme is a hi-tech matchmaker who pairs the next generation of Lifers aboard the Expedition, a deep space transport vessel destined for Paradise 18. When the identity of her lifemate pops up on her screen, she’s shocked that he’s the achingly gorgeous and highly sought after Lieutenant Miles Brentwood—a man oblivious to her existence. Believing everyone will think she contrived the match, she erases it from the computer’s memory.

Just as comets pummel the ship and destroy the pairing system forever.

With the Expedition disabled, the colonists must crash land on the barren ice world of Tundra 37 where Gemme is reassigned to an exploratory mission, led by Lieutenant Brentwood. Only in the frozen tundra does she understand the shape of his heart and why the computer has entwined their destinies.

Title: Paradise 21 (A New Dawn, #1)
Author: Aubrie Dionne
Genre: Sci-Fi Romance
Length: 248 pages
Release Date: August 2011

Aries has lived her entire life aboard mankind’s last hope, the New Dawn, a spaceship traveling toward a planet where humanity can begin anew—a planet that won’t be reached in Aries’ lifetime. As one of the last genetically desirable women in the universe, she must marry her designated genetic match and produce the next generation for this centuries-long voyage.


But Aries has other plans.

When her desperate escape from the New Dawn strands her on a desert planet, Aries discovers the rumors about pirates—humans who escaped Earth before its demise—are true. Handsome, genetically imperfect Striker possesses the freedom Aries envies, and the two connect on a level she never thought possible. But pursued by her match from above and hunted by the planet’s native inhabitants, Aries quickly learns her freedom will come at a hefty price.

The life of the man she loves.