Weather Witch Blog Tour: Interview and Giveaway

I’m thrilled to be part of the Author’s Taproom’s blog tour for Shannon Delany’s new series the Weather Witch. I was a huge fan of Shannon’s 13 to Life series and am really enjoying her new series. My review for the book should be up sometime soonish. Check out my awesome interview with Shannon below, as well as learn about how to win some awesome prizes and learn more about this awesome new book series.

About the book:

In a vastly different and darker Philadelphia of 1844, steam power has been repressed, war threatens from deep, dark waters, and one young lady of high social standing is expecting a surprise at her seventeenth birthday party–but certainly not the one she gets!

Jordan Astraea, who has lived out all of her life in Philadelphia’s most exclusive neighborhood, is preparing to celebrate her birthday with friends, family and all the extravagance they might muster. The young man who is most often her dashing companion, Rowen Burchette, has told her a surprise awaits her and her best friend, Catrina Hollindale, wouldn’t miss this night for all the world!

But storm clouds are gathering and threatening to do far more than dampen her party plans because someone in the Astraea household has committed the greatest of social sins by Harboring a Weather Witch.

Trailer:

---

Interview with Shannon Delany

Describe your book in five words or less.
A storm of strife.

How does writing the Weather Witch series differ from writing the 13 to Life series? Do you find writing one harder than the other?
The voice and POV of Weather Witch is vastly different than 13 to Life. In 13 to Life you were Jessie, or Alexi... It was 1st person and you saw through their eyes only. Weather Witch is more removed in some ways. I'm tackling hard topics (again) but in a way I hope makes readers ask themselves questions. 13 TO LIFE was easier to write because (having done 5 books in 1st person POV) I have more experience writing that way.

Which character in the Weather Witch was your favorite to write and why?
Oh, wow. I actually enjoyed writing Bran the most. He's dark and troubled and there's just so much to him (even beyond the series' pages). He was like 13 TO LIFE's Max--a character who was only supposed to be cardboard--a tool to the story's progression or, at most, another character's foil, but he wouldn't settle for that.

Do you outline or just write and see where it takes you? Did you know the how the series was going to end before you started writing?
I don't really outline. I'm sure I should--I think it's what grown-up writers really do--but I tend to jot down my promotional ideas, do a synopsis, a few sketches and then I start writing. The most amazing thngs happen when you just write and let them happen. Pieces puzzle together and the "aha! moments" pounce on you.

What is harder to write, the first sentence or the last?
Honestly, everything in between is the hardest to write! I often know the beginning and the end and only need to tweak and tighten them a few times before I'm happy with them, but what many authors call "the soggy middle" is the area of a book where the plot bunnies roam and distractions catch the eyes of your characters.

What is your strangest writing habit?
The fact I don't currently have any writing habits? I used to, but writing has been a bit haphazard for me recently--many things beg for my attention so my schedule is all wonky and the only thing I do regularly is open the document I'm working on, skim a few paragraphs and dive in to the new writing.

I love the world you created in Weather Witch. What served as your inspiration for this series?
Thank you! I've always been fascinated by clouds and thunderstorms and the power they have. Connect that to my early memories of being on a sailboat with my mom and day and my love of history and places like Philadelphia, Herkimer, Bangor, and Salem and my hatred of slavery and torture as a means of gaining a person's compliance and BOOM you get Weather Witch.

If you could spend a day with a character from any book who would it be and why?
Hagrid from the Harry Potter series. He's a good-hearted guy, a bit of a bumbler, but tremendously intriguing. Plus he has interesting pets and a garden. I'm cool with all that.

If you had a time machine and could travel to any time and place, where would you go?
I used to say if I had all my immunizations up to date, water purification tablets and Purell aplenty I'd go back to the Renaissance and hope to meet Queen Elizabeth I, Grania O'Malley, and maybe see a Shakespeare play at the Globe. But now? I don't know. I'm finally starting to like the here and now. Or at least feel like I'm part of it.

What YA book do you wish had been published when you were a teen?
There are actually quite a few. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed Harry Potter then (though I love it now) but I might have connected to The Hunger Games. I loved The Blue Sword and anything else with female heroes.

About Shannon Delany:

Shannon Delany has been writing fiction since she was a child. Inspired by a teacher in 4th grade and the creative endeavors of her parents, she was frequently encouraged to find her voice. First published in 8th grade in a short story anthology, she caught the writing bug for good and used her teen friends as beta readers but it wasn't until after being a middle school teacher that she pursued writing seriously. She freelanced for magazines and newspapers and then won the first-ever cell phone novel contest in the western world with 13 TO LIFE. An agent and a press release followed quickly and she was snapped up by St. Martin's Press where she has happily remained through 5 novels in the 13 TO LIFE series and three novels in the WEATHER WITCH series. She also contributes to charity anthologies, has a small heritage farm and a blog talk radio show called BOOKED! with Shannon Delany.

---

Blog Giveaway Information

Leave a comment on this post, including a method of communication, to be entered to win a mini-prize pack. Contest open internationally. Mini-prize pack includes:

• a signed mini poster
• a signed postcard and more story-related goodies

Tour-Wide Giveaway Information

Shannon Delaney will be giving away the following to a few lucky winners:

• a signed copy of Weather Witch
• a Weather Witch coffee mug with special goodies (all connected to the story)
• signed copies of 13 to Life and Secrets and Shadows
• a handcrafted mask
• a special metal and crystal bookmark
• a mini top hat
• a silhouette of their own profile cut and matted by me (it'll take a few weeks after getting their profile before I can get it to them, of course).

Just fill complete the raffelcopter below to be entered to win. Giveaway open internationally.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Waiting on Wednesday (95) - The Unbound

The Unbound (The Archived #2)

Victoria Schwab

Publisher: Hyperion

To be released: January 28, 2014

Summary (from Goodreads):

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books. Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Last summer, Mackenzie Bishop, a Keeper tasked with stopping violent Histories from escaping the Archive, almost lost her life to one. Now, as she starts her junior year at Hyde School, she's struggling to get her life back. But moving on isn't easy -- not when her dreams are haunted by what happened. She knows the past is past, knows it cannot hurt her, but it feels so real, and when her nightmares begin to creep into her waking hours, she starts to wonder if she's really safe. 

Meanwhile, people are vanishing without a trace, and the only thing they seem to have in common is Mackenzie. She's sure the Archive knows more than they are letting on, but before she can prove it, she becomes the prime suspect. And unless Mac can track down the real culprit, she'll lose everything, not only her role as Keeper, but her memories, and even her life. Can Mackenzie untangle the mystery before she herself unravels?

With stunning prose and a captivating mixture of action, romance, and horror, The Unbound delves into a richly imagined world where no choice is easy and love and loss feel like two sides of the same coin.

Oh man. I still can’t believe I have to wait until January 2014 to read this book. The Archived was amazing, and I expected nothing less from Victoria Schwab. The writing and the story were captivating and I cannot wait to find out what happens next in this unique world Victoria Schwab has created!

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event highlighting exciting upcoming releases. It is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Waiting on Wednesday (94) - The Dream Thieves

The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2)

Maggie Stiefvater

Publisher: Scholastic Press

To be released: September 17, 2013

Summary (from Goodreads):

The second installment in the all-new series from the masterful, #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater!

Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...

I cannot wait for the sequel to the Raven Boys. I love Maggie Stiefvater’s books, and the Raven Boys was probably my favorite book by her. I cannot wait to see where she takes these characters in this book.

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event highlighting exciting upcoming releases. It is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

The 5^th Wave

Rick Yancey

Publisher: Putnam Juvenile

Release Date: May 7, 2013

Series or Standalone: The Fifth Wave #1

ISBN: 0399162410

Pages: 480

Websites:

The 5th Wave –Website 

The 5th Wave –Facebook

Rick Yancey – Website 

Rick Yancey – Blog 

Rick Yancey – Twitter 

Rick Yancey – Facebook 

Rating: 4.5 Stars

I stumbled upon the 5^th Wave by accident on Facebook as was extremely worried going into this book that it would not live up to all the marketing and hype. From page one I was hooked. It seems like aliens might be the hot new thing in YA (Icons was also about an alien invasion as well), and if all stories were like the 5^th Wave, I really wouldn’t mind.

Yancey creates a world decimated by an alien invasion. Currently on what the survivors call the 5^th wave of the invasion, no one knows who to trust. Anyone can be one of the others. The world that the character live is one full of sadness, hopelessness, and distrust. Cassie, one of the main characters, is all alone, having watched her mother and father die in front of her eyes and watched her younger brother taken away. Cassie has nothing really left to live for but the slim chance that her younger brother might still be alive. In a world so desolate and bleak, it is strange that there is a small glimmer of hope for each character. I couldn’t help but want these characters to survive, despite all the horrors they have seen.

The writing in this book is fabulous. I was captivated from the prologue. I literally put the book down and told my roommate “I have never been that quickly hooked to a book. That prologue was an amazing piece of writing.” While the story jumps around from the point of view of a few characters, it wasn’t really jarring, and all the characters were connected, as the connections between each one slowly comes together over the course of the novel. I would say Cassie’s perspective, which takes up most of the book, was probably the strongest and we got more into Cassie’s mind and emotions than the other characters.

For a long book, almost 500 pages, I flew through it, finishing most of it in one night. While a book that long might feel like it took forever to get through, I didn’t have that issue. The plot rarely dragged, and I didn’t feel like I had to force myself through any of the sections of the book. I was eagerly turning backs to find out more about what was happening and learn more about this finely crafted world Yancey had created it. When I reached the end, I was shocked to find there was no more book left! I cannot wait to see how the next book in this series is as that ending was killer and this book was fantastic.

The 5^th Wave by Rick Yancey lives up to the hype. It’s definitely one of my favorite books of the year. This book is full of emotions and managed to provide an entertaining read while also taking a look at what it means to be human. I cannot wait for the next book in this series.

P.S. You guys should check out the 5th Wave and their online marketing. It’s really awesome and I love how it promotes and ties into the book.

Icons by Margaret Stohl

Icons

Margaret Stohl

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Release Date: May 7, 2013

Series or Standalone: Icons #1

ISBN: 0316205184

Format: ARC

Pages: 428

Websites:

Margaret Stohl – Website

Margaret Stohl – Facebook 

Margaret Stohl– Twitter 

Rating: 3 Stars

Icons was one of those books that I couldn’t fully get into. I didn’t hate but I didn’t love it, it was mehh. Icons had a lot of potential and I am interested to see were this series goes, but as the first book in a series it felt very jumbled and disconnected.

Icons is set in the not so distant future in a post-invasion world where aliens hold the complete control and most of the population has been killed. As the tagline says “Your heart only beats with their permission.” It is hard for me to describe what sort of world, Dol, the main character, is living in because I couldn’t really get a clear picture of what it was like. This post-invasion world didn’t seem to be fully constructed which oftentimes left me feeling confused. The politics of this world also were confusing. I did not really understand why things were happening, or why the Ambassadors were so bad or what was up with the rebellion faction. I felt I had to struggle to put together the pieces of this world, something that should be clearly developed in the first book of a series.

The characters in the book left me wanting more. I couldn’t connect to any of them. They were all so flat and emotionless, though as children of the Icon, emotionless they shouldn’t be. The romance in the book felt stale, probably because of the lack of depth in the characters. The only character I found remotely interesting was Doc, and he was an artificial intelligence.

The plot was intriguing enough that it kept me turning the pages. There was plenty of action and mystery to keep me interested in finding out more. I really enjoyed how between chapters there would be different artifacts or clips that related to the plot in a  not so clear way until the end. The biggest thing that kept me reading was the mystery of the Icons. Well, that’s not fully answered in this book, but I look forward to finding more out of them.

As a first book in a series, Icons left me feeling confused and wanting more. I expected more from this book than it gave me. I’ll be reading the sequel because the story was interesting enough to make me want to keep reading, but I hope in the next book the world and characters are more developed. I can’t help but compare this post-alien invasion book to another new alien invasion book, The 5^th Wave by Rick Yancey, and this just falls flat in comparison to that. Hopefully Margaret Stohl can deliver more in the next Icon series book.   

I'm Back!

After a very, very long and unexpected hiatus, I have returned back to my blog! Now that is summer (or at least it's summer for me cause school's out) I have time to finally get back to something I really enjoy and have been away from for far too long. After a crazy busy junior year at Boston University, and a very crazy last month here for Boston, I'm back now and hoping to rejuvenate this blog with some life.

It is going to take some work and effort to get back in the habit of blogging, but it's something I'm willing to do. This summer I have a lot of free time outside my internship and work and I am making a promise to myself to use that free time to get back to blogging. I know it is going to be slow going at first, what with having to get back in the habit of doing things, but I must stick with it. So here is to kicking some life back into this blog. Wooo!