Buy With Malice
Special price $19.15 Regular price: $19.29 ($24.80 CDN)
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers / Raincoast Books
Format: Hardcover
Reviewer: Melissa on June 9, 2016
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

It was the perfect trip…until it wasn’t.

Eighteen-year-old Jill Charron wakes up in a hospital room with her leg in a cast, stitches in her face, and a black hole where the last six weeks of her life ought to be. She learns she was involved in a fatal car crash during her school trip to Italy. A trip she doesn’t even remember taking. Nor does she remember being sent on a private jet home by her wealthy father in order to receive the best care available. Care that includes a lawyer. And a press team. Because as Jill – and the reader – soon learns, there are some people who think maybe the accident wasn’t really an accident. In With Malice by Canadian YA author Eileen Cook, the accident makes national headlines and Jill finds herself in the center of a murder investigation in which the media portrays her as a sociopath who killed her sweet, bubbly best friend, Simone, in a jealous rage. As the evidence mounts, there’s only one thing that Jill knows without a shadow of doubt: She would never hurt Simone. But if she didn’t…then what really happened in Italy? Questioning both who she can trust and what she’s capable of, Jill desperately attempts to put together the missing pieces of the last six weeks before she loses control of her once-perfect life.

On the back of the ARC Raincoast Books sent me on behalf of HMH Books for Young Readers, it says: “A gripping and addictive read that grabs the reader and yanks them into a world where nothing is what it seems and where everyone is a suspect. You won’t believe how it ends.” It’s not every day that when a publisher, like HMH, makes a cover flap claim that I agree with wholeheartedly. Especially the parts about it being “gripping and addictive,” “everyone is a suspect,” and “I won’t believe how it ends.” If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself completely fascinated by the turn of events that this novel takes throughout the story. In fact, the further I got in the novel, the more claustrophobic it became as Jill’s circle of people she could trust got smaller and as it became more clear that even what Jill herself believed was suspect. Moreover, this novel is completely unpredictable. I expected twists and turns, but I found myself truly surprised by how Cook wraps up the story in a way that took me a couple of days to process my thoughts and feelings.

One of the things that I loved most about this psychological YA thriller, beyond what I’ve already said, is the way that Cook alternates between telling the story through Jill’s unreliable point of view and through chapters that tell the story through various documents from travel guide snippets, police interviews, blog posts, and their notoriously terrible comments to Facebook comments, text messages, undelivered letters, television transcripts, media interviews or statements, and forensic psychology reports. While I’m not well versed in reading all the types of documents that Cook includes, her decision to use mediums that l readers will be more familiar with, such as travel guides, texts messages, and online comments to blog posts, Facebook pages, or news stories makes the other ones infinitely more familiar and increases the believability of every document type she gives readers…even the ones with which relatively few readers, especially in the target audience, would be familiar.

At the same time, the decision to include mediums and voices outside of Jill’s first person narration increase the importance of the news piece that Jill’s life had become and make the weight of the sentence she faces much more real. Whereas many of the mysteries and thrillers I read as a young adult focus on the key players, Cook shows that when a news story of the magnitude of Simone’s death and Jill’s involvement in it breaks, everyone has an opinion about it. And those who may only have a cursory understanding of the complex relationship between Jill and her BFF, Simone, are willing to step up either voluntarily or for the money to share their insight into the case. It was just one other way that Cook made the world of her story real to a reader because we’ve all come to know at least one – if not many – news stories that are fought, initially, in the court of public opinion and through media spin before the accused ever sees his or her day in court. It reminded me that unlike most crime TV shows, the story doesn’t just play out in the vacuum of the investigators and what they share with the public in a way that I don’t remember another book doing so well before, and if my experience of reading this book is anything like yours will be, it’ll call to mind at least one story that had the world talking online, through the media, and in their homes.

While I have a lot more that I could say about this book, I don’t want to spoil anything for the reader because you deserve a chance to pick it up and form your own opinion of what happens. With Malice is highly recommended for anyone who loved Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl…minus the victim’s voice.

Buy With Malice today and benefit from a small discount!

One-Question Interview with Eileen Cook: 

YA Book Shelf: Rather than just a straight first person narrative from Jill’s perspective, With Malice has layers of other materials from travel guide tips, police interviews, and blog
posts to blog comments, text messages, emails, postcards, and ripped up letters, which
offer different opinions about what happened, or might have happened, in Italy.

How did you decide which voices to include and how did you make sure that the various voices represented were distinct and that the various mediums seem like legitimate documents of the events? What kind of research into criminal investigations and the way information is collected
and disseminated both in legal courts and in the court of public opinion did you have to
complete to make these documents believable?

Eileen Cook: Part of what I wanted to explore in With Malice was the idea of how our reality is shaped by our memory of events, but if you can’t remember, who do you trust to help you fill
in those gaps? The main character Jill has been in a car accident and has a brain injury
as a result.

I worked for years as a counselor for people with catastrophic injuries and illness,
including brain injury. I was an expert on the topic for the BC Supreme Court, so I had
the opportunity to work with a lot of lawyers and to read and review documents, such as
psychology reports, police documents, transcripts etc. that are used in court cases. When
I had a draft of the book I checked with several people to try and ensure I got the
details correct. (Any mistakes are my fault.)

What made the writing fun was having the chance to drop into the head of so many
different people in this story—other students on the trip, teachers, reporters etc.
They all have a version of the truth and different motivations to spin the story. The
truth is slippery. What really happened is filtered through past experiences, memory, and
belief systems. I hoped to give readers the experience of trying to sift through all this
information and decide for themselves what they believed happened.

YABookShelf: Thanks so much for stopping by my blog, Eileen!

Buy The Square Root of Summer
Special price $15.51 Regular price: $15.67 ($20.50 CDN)
Publisher: Roaring Brook / Raincoast Books
Format: Hardcover
Reviewer: Melissa on May 19, 2016
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve. It’s a little like a black hole. It’s a little like infinity.

In Harriet Reuter Hapgood‘s The Square Root of Summer, Gottie H. Oppenheimer is…Seventeen. Motherless. A math genius. And she’s losing time…literally. When the fabric of the universe surrounding Gottie’s small, seaside, English town begins to fray, she is sent hurtling through wormholes to her past: To last summer, when her grandfather Grey died. To the afternoon she fell in love with Jason, who wouldn’t even hold her hand at the funeral. To the day her childhood best friend Thomas moved to Canada, leaving her behind with a scar on her head and a black hole in her memory. Grey is still gone, but this summer, Jason and Thomas are back, and Gottie’s past, present, and future are about to collide – and be forever changed.

When I first heard about The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood at the Raincoast TeenReads Winter 2016 event last fall, I immediately added it to my Goodreads TBR. The publicists referred to it as a YA version of The Time Traveler’s Wife, which is one of my all-time favorite novels, but what really sealed the deal was hearing that the author wrote her MA dissertation on Dawson’s Creek, one of my all-time favorite shows. Even though I don’t believe that the comparison to The Time Traveler’s Wife is accurate because it isn’t as much a tragic love story and tearjerker as a book about a young girl who has to come to terms with her grief over her grandfather and the sudden loss of Jason in her life and find a way to live in the present…even when it’s difficult, I still am happy I read this novel.

One of my favorite parts of the novel was the highly-developed character of Gottie herself. She is a strong, intelligent young woman, who – from my non-STEM perspective – would be a great example of what teen girls could attempt to achieve in either math or physics. In a world where more teen girls are pursuing STEM fields, it’s so important for them to have an example not just of someone who is the star pupil in her small town, but who is developing a concept in advanced theoretical physics that surpasses both this reader’s  and her teacher’s understanding about wormholes. Beyond these basic things about her character, I also kind of loved her capacity to remember the past and imagine the future or move through time in the language of the book is incredible, even though staying in the present would be preferable in the long run. I mean, the way that she is right there with all the things she saw, smelt, felt, and heard when her past was the present makes her ability to time travel through wormholes realistic.

While it seemed realistic to me…despite being part fantasy…I had a hard time reading this novel. I wasn’t reading much when I started this book, so that’s part of the reason that it took me 10 days to read The Square Root of Summer, but it’s not the only one. The other part was despite the amazing characters and many beautiful turns of phrase, I felt lost a lot of the time while reading this book. I think that is more a condition of not having taken physics at all in high school or beyond than anything to do with the book itself. I can’t say whether other people who only took biology and chemistry would feel the same way, but ultimately, it made it impossible for me to love this novel, no matter how much I wanted to do so.

The Square Root of Summer is a moving, coming of age portrait of a young woman who learns that living in the present, even when it’s not easy, is more important than living in the past.

Buy The Square Root of Summer for a great price!

One-Question Interview with Harriet Reuter Hapgood: 

YABookShelf: If you were able to slip through wormholes like Margot, where and when would you love to
travel to whether in your own lifetime or not?

Harriet Reuter Hapgood: I wouldn’t ever choose to travel to somewhere on my own life path – I don’t think
you’d ever gain anything from trying to literally revisit or rework your past; the
mistakes we make and the choices we make are necessary to who we become. I am a huge
Elvis fan so travelling back to 1960s Memphis and hanging out at Graceland would be cool.
But I’ve also read enough sci-fi to be too terrified to actually do it – the fear of
changing history totally by changing one tiny thing, of causing a domino effect across
time… For me, The Square Root of Summer is about learning to live in the present –
not to dwell on the past or be afraid of the future, but to be conscious and aware that
your life is right here, right now.

Buy Gena / Finn
Special price $15.34 Regular price: $17.99 ($24.99 CDN)
Publisher: Chronicle Books / Raincoast Books
Format: Hardcover
Reviewer: Melissa on March 17, 2016
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Gena / Finn by Hannah Moskowitz and Kat Helgeson follows the unlikely friendship of two young women forged via fan fiction and message boards, and is told entirely in texts, chats, and blog posts.

Gena (short for Genevieve) and Finn (short for Stephanie) have very little in common. Book-smart Gena is getting ready to leave her post boarding school to start college; down-to-earth Finn is a twenty-something struggling to make ends meet in the big city. While Gena’s romantic life consists of a series of one-night-stands, Finn is trying to make a go of it with her long-term boyfriend Charlie. But they do have one thing in common: a passion for Up Below, a buddy cop TV show with a cult fan following. Gena is a darling of the Up Below fangirl scene who runs a popular blog on Tumblr and writes fan fiction. By contrast, Finn keeps her online life a secret, even from Charlie. These girls spark an unlikely online friendship, which quickly deepens (so quickly it scares them both), and as their “real” lives begin falling apart, they seek shelter online…and with each other.

If you read my blog regularly, then you know that when I pick up a book, even one of the ones that I’ve highly anticipating like Gena / Finn, I try to avoid re-reading the synopsis first. I want to, wherever possible, dive into the books I pick up with a fresh outlook. For that reason, I’m not surprised that it took me a little while to get what the fandom that Gena and Finn love was about, however, once I got it figured out, it was impossible to put down this story. I found myself reading late into the night and early in the morning transfixed by the characters, the situations that they find themselves in, and the community in which they are a part.

For me, one of the best things about this book is the idea that online friendships can be and are real, and that getting involved in online communities, especially those that you meet through a fandom, can enrich your life. I particularly liked the fact that these two female characters were there for each other, through everything, even when it meant potentially sacrificing things in their “real” lives. Gena didn’t have anyone except for Finn, and Finn had people she cared about, but no one who really understood her fascination with Up Below. Even though the circumstances are different, it reminded me of all the people who I’ve met through the book blogging community, some of whom have become great friends and confidants of mine. While none of my online friendships are as deep as the ones that Gena and Finn share, it felt great to read about a world and characters who believe in the possibility of real, online connections.

That’s not to say that there aren’t negative consequences to the relationship that Gena and Finn start with one another. Because anyone who has read Gena/Finn knows it is, in equal turns, beautiful and heartbreaking. There were moments in the story which made me feel inspired. While other moments made me scream, “Noooo!” at the book (and the authors indirectly). But no matter what was happening in the story, there were all kinds of feels.

I could be wrong, but I believe that the fandom that Hannah and Kat created with Jake and Tyler was loosely based on Supernatural. While there isn’t anything…supernatural…about Up Below, the concept of two main male characters, who are part of a huge fandom that is biased toward one character over the other? Yeah, it’s a parallel at least.

Whether you’re part of one or multiple fandoms, whether you write, read, or steer clear of fanfic, you have to give this one a try. Seriously. Moreover, like my fave book by Hannah Moskowitz, Gone, Gone, Gone, there is a big emotional aspect to Gena / Finn. If you want a punch in the feels, then you don’t want to miss this unique, contemporary YA novel.

Interview with Hannah Moskowitz & Kat Helgeson

YA Book Shelf: Knowing the good and bad parts of being part of the Up Below fandom, do you think that
they would still get so involved with it if they had to do it all over again?

Kat Helgeson: Absolutely. No question. I would say the bad things that happened to Gena and Finn
weren’t as a result of their involvement with fandom, but rather, other choices they
made.

Hannah Moskowitz: Yeah, of course.

Buy Gena / Finn today and benefit from 10% off the regular price!

 

 

 

About the Author

M.R. Merrick is a Canadian writer and author of The Protector Series, and The Rise of Genesis. Having never traveled, he adventures to far off lands through his imagination and in between cups of coffee. As a music lover and proud breakfast enthusiast, he’s usually found at the computer between a pair of headphones and a large bowl of cereal.

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Let us know what you think of the cover for The Sound of Us by Julie Hammerle!

The Sound of Us releases on June 7, 2016

About The Sound of Us:

Kiki Nichols @kikeronis

Turns out the best opera camp in Indiana is more like boot camp. Goodbye, #GameofThrones #TheWalkingDead #ProjectEarth

Kiki Nichols @kikeronis

Silver lining to having your best friend stab you in the back: you’re no longer her constant tag-along. I can
kick ass here. 

Kiki Nichols @kikeronis

Kiki Nichols @kikeronis

Want to Read More? Pre-order The Sound of Us Today!

Amazon | B&N| Kobo | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.ca | The Book Depository | Books A Million

Announcing a new book by M.R. Merrick!

In a world where being Supernatural means you’re in danger, Ash Lawson is front and center. After years of helping others escape ATOM—a government entity known for abusing Supernaturals—he’s captured, and saving himself will prove to be the most difficult task he’s undertaken.

Tryst Rivera is a Succubus and veteran at the Academy, a facility tasked with converting underage Supernaturals into cooperative ATOM soldiers. She’s endured her time mostly unscathed, but when Ash arrives and their lives are tethered to one another, she’s placed in immediate danger.

With escape at the forefront of his mind, Ash struggles with the idea of life under ATOM’s thumb. He’ll die before he converts, but his life isn’t the only one he’s responsible for, and he already has more blood on his hands than he can bear. When a chance for freedom arises, Ash needs to decide how much—and who—he’s willing to risk for a second chance.

 

M.R. Merrick is a Canadian writer and author of The Protector Series, and The Rise of Genesis. Having never traveled, he adventures to far off lands through his imagination and in between cups of coffee. As a music lover and proud breakfast enthusiast, he’s usually found at the computer between a pair of headphones and a large bowl of cereal.

Top 5 books–Forbidden, The Book Thief, Peter and the Starcatchers, This Book is Not Good for You, and The Name of This Book is Secret.

Thanks so much for participating in the Fantastic Fives event Melissa! Amber and I loved having you!

Hugs,
Jaime

Back in April, we celebrated our 5-year blog anniversary…but we’re not the only blog celebrating five years in 2015. In fact, we’ve teamed up with several other blogs — thanks to the organizing wizardry of Amber at Me, Myshelf & I and Jaime at Two Chicks on Books — to celebrate the FANTASTIC FIVES.

Fantastic Fives: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

YA Book Shelf: My name is Melissa. I’m a Canadian, who grew up about 30 minutes away from Niagara Falls, Canada, but I’ve been living for three years in Toronto, Canada with my partner John and our two cats, P’tite Folle and Gollum. All of my immediate family members and most of my extended family still lives in the Niagara Region, and I try to visit there very regularly.

I have an M.A. in English Literature. Several years ago…pre-blog…I went to night school to get some additional accreditation in marketing, and I’ve worked in several different industries, including the vegan packaged goods, in part because I’m live on a vegan and gluten-free diet. (Yes, it can be done!)

I now work as the TEEN Publicist for Entangled Publishing, which means I get to come up with a lot of fun marketing and publicity campaigns for my favorite category of books. Some of the books that I’ve worked on, like Pintip Dunn’s Forget Tomorrow, have been listed as the YA Best Books of the Month from Goodreads, gotten exposure on sites like BuzzFeed.com, and positively reviewed by Kirkus. It’s kind of my dream job.

Fantastic Fives: How did you get started blogging?

YA Book Shelf: In 2010 when I started YABookShelf.com, I was working for an online marketing firm. I enjoyed working with my colleagues, but the work itself wasn’t as fulfilling as my academic work during my undergrad and grad days. I was thinking about expanding my writing portfolio, so why I learned that an IRL friend of mine was running a book blog (now defunct), I thought that it would be a good opportunity to create content that more closely aligned with my educational background while using the marketing skills I’d developed on the job.

From there, YA Book Shelf was born.

Fantastic Fives: How did you pick the name for your blog?

YA Book Shelf: Honestly, I looked very closely at the young adult book blogs that existed at the time to see what names had been taken and to create something unique and easily recognizable. After brainstorming many other blog names, I settled on this one, in part, because I thought people who didn’t know that YA was an acronym for young adult books might read “ya” as a recognizable slang word.

Fantastic Fives: If you could go back in time and tell your newbie blogger self 1 thing what would it be?

YA Book Shelf: Save, save, and save some more. You never know when you may wake up and find all of your blog posts deleted (this actually happened to me in the fall of 2012) and not have a recent back up saved. Here’s a post I wrote about the ordeal a few months later.

Fantastic Fives: What have you learned in your 5 years of blogging?

YA Book Shelf: Doing something that you’re passionate about will not only never feel like work, but also will lead to future opportunities, some of which you will never anticipate and others, you’ll only dream of before hand. I earned my two most recent full-time jobs and several speaking and freelance review opportunities as a direct result of the skills I learned and demonstrated through developing YABookShelf.com.

What was the first ARC or book you ever received from a publisher?

I believe it was Nonna’s Book of Mysteries by Mary Osborne. Around the same time I received a bunch of other books to review – and I even won my first eReader in a contest that Cheryl Rainfield ran for her debut novel, Scars. However, I’m pretty sure that Mary Osborne’s book from a small publisher called Lake Street Press was the first book that I received for review.

Fantastic Fives: When you’re not reading or blogging, what can we find you doing?

YA Book Shelf: During the days (and some of the evenings) I  develop and carry out the marketing and publicity plans for all the print and digital books on the Entangled TEEN, Crush, and Crave lines for Entangled Publishing, which definitely requires a lot of my creativity. In addition, I love cooking healthy, vegan and gluten-free recipes, talking about YA fiction with my IRL book club, knitting (sometimes), and spending time with my family, friends, and kitties, P’tite Folle and Gollum.

The Fives: (and yes, you can ONLY have 5! *muwhahahah*)

5 Favorite Books

1) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

2) Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

3) Hold Still by Nina LaCour

4) The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

5) The Way the Crow Flies by Ann-Marie MacDonald

5 Favorite Book Boyfriends

1) Josh from Stephanie Perkins’ Isla and the Happily Ever After

2) Lio from Hannah Moskowitz’s Gone, Gone, Gone

3) Prince Maxon from Kiera Cass’ The Selection Series

4) Brand from Maggie L. Wood’s Captured, The Darkening, and Auralict in The Divided Realms Series

5) Park from Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park

5 Favorite Book Quotes

1) “‘You love me. Real or not real.’

I tell him, ‘Real.'” – Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay

2) “But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.” - Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

3) “Just wanted to let you know I got in all right. And also that my chest hurts as if I MAY BE DYING, because I accidentally left my heart on your kitchen counter. I hate when that happens.” - Hannah Moskowitz, Gone, Gone, Gone

4) “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am souless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal — as we are!” - Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

5) “Love is an intervention. Why do we not choose it?” - Jeanette Winterson, The Stone Gods

5 Blogging Tips For New Bloggers:

1) Always be saving.

2) No matter what you’re blogging about, be authentic. People will respond to you, being you, and of course, you’ll meet IRL friends eventually because of it.

3) Always be honest with your reviews. If you aren’t honest, people will eventually stop trusting the things you have to say. Of course, not everyone will have the same opinion as you, but they will respect you.

4) When you have criticism of a book, be constructive in the way you present it. You don’t have to follow this advice – I know that not everyone does – but that’s my advice. Take it or leave it.

5) Enjoy every moment of it.
5 Blogs You Want The World To Know About:

1) Mostly YA Lit

2) Good Books And Good Wine

3) WildeOnMySide’s Blog

4) Pop! Goes the Reader

5) Candid Cover

And now, it’s giveaway time….

I thought that it would be fitting to offer up a copy of the sequel to the first review copy I ever received on YA Book Shelf. So today and until midnight EST on Saturday, November 28th, U.S. and Canadian residents will have the chance to win Alchemy’s Daughter and this awesome swag pack, pictured below! 

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[…] believe it was Nonna’s Book of Mysteries by Mary Osborne. Around the same time I received a bunch of other books to review – and I […]

[…] actually happened to me in the fall of 2012) and not have a recent back up saved. Here’s a post I wrote about the ordeal a few months […]

Thanks for commenting, K.S.! Like you, I wasn’t raised either vegetarian or vegan, so I agree that showing compassion for others is so important.

Thanks for this list! I’ve published two self-help books for teens and just completed a novel (the first of a series) with a vegan main character and several other vegan and vegetarian characters (several of who work at a local farm sanctuary). I came across your post while collecting research to show that there is interest in such characters, and in story lines involving rising consciousness among teens–animal welfare, environmental concerns, other-than-classical ideas about spirituality, and so on. I was formerly a staff writer for the Humane Society of the US, and I completely agree with John’s comments about how it’s important to show compassion for all people, as we’re all on the journey together. While I’m a vegan now, I wasn’t raised vegetarian or vegan, and I try to always keep in mind how I could have communicated with the animal-eating me of my earlier life.

Awesome! Thanks for commenting, Jessica.

When the right hearts come to the Avery Theater—at the right time—the magic will return. The Avery will come back from the dead.

Or so Quin’s great-grandmother predicted many years ago on Verona, Missouri’s most tragic night, when Nick and Emma, two star-crossed teenage lovers, died on the stage. It was the night that the Avery’s marquee lights went out forever.

It sounds like urban legend, but one that high school senior Quin is now starting to believe, especially when her best friend, Cass, and their classmate Dylan step onto the stage and sparks fly. It seems that magic can still unfold at the old Avery Theater and a happier ending can still be had—one that will align the stars and revive not only the decrepit theater, but also the decaying town. However, it hinges on one thing—that Quin gets the story right this time around.

Holly Schindler brings the magic of the theater to life in this tale of family ties, fate, love, and one girl’s quest to rewrite history.

“In my hometown, the restoration of a former movie theater on the town square provided the genesis for my new YA novel, SPARK. Who among us hasn’t dreamed of seeing their name in blazing neon across a gigantic marquee? Let me invite you to dim the lights and draw back the velvet curtains—let your imagination run wild as you enter my fictional Avery Theater, where literally anything goes…”

—Holly Schindler

Holly Schindler is the author of three previous YA novels: Playing Hurt as well as the critically acclaimed Feral (starred PW review) and A Blue So Dark (starred Booklist review, ForeWord Book of the Year silver medal, IPPY gold medal). A writer of books for all ages, Schindler’s MG, The Junction Of Sunshine And Lucky, has made the master list for children’s book awards in Illinois, South Carolina, and Alabama. She is also a hybrid author, having independently released comedic women’s fiction (Fifth Avenue Fidos) and the forthcoming Play It Again, her adult follow-up to her YA Playing Hurt. She can be reached through her author site: hollyschindler.com, and hosts special sneak peeks and giveaways for subscribers of her newsletter: tinyletter.com/hollyschindler.com.

Spark “Premieres” May 17, 2016, but you can buy your “tickets” now at Amazon or B&N!

I love her Woman of the Otherworld series and love the TV series based off of the novel Bitten. I will admit that I didn’t much care for the 3rd book of the series, but the rest are A+. Armstrong ‘ book were among the first that helped build my love for paranormal romance.

Did you know that today is World Teachers’ Day? Or in other words, It’s the best time of the year to let the teachers in your life (or who were at one point in your life) know how grateful you are for everything that they’ve done for you or helped you accomplish.

I don’t know about you, but teachers have always been important to me. When I was little, before my younger sister started school, one of my favorite things to do was play school. I was the teacher, and my sister was the student. I have no idea whether my sister learned anything, but I was clearly influenced by my teachers up till that time. As I got older, I realized that I didn’t want to be a teacher myself, but it never changed how important I know they are. So today, on World Teachers’ Day, not only did I want to celebrate my five favorite teachers, but also call attention to the people who haven’t been as lucky as I am with regards to the educators who came into their life.

Here are my 5 favorite teachers, in the order in which I met them:

1. Mrs. Hockey: I was in second grade many years ago, so it’s too long ago for me to remember everything about my teacher that year. However, everything that I do remember was amazing. She introduced me to the poetry of Shel Silverstein from Where the Sidewalk Ends, and in her class, we got to make books of our own stories, using wallpaper for the covers. She also was one of the first people to award me in a literary way, giving me a copy of The Balloon Tree by Phoebe Gilman for the Book Award that year. I was already a big reader, but these experiences solidified my bookworm status.
2. Mrs. Anne Osborne: When I was in both grade 7 and 8, circumstances worked to put me in the split class both years with the same teacher – Mrs. Anne Osborne.  Even though she made me stand in the hall one day because she said I was “acting up to the eight graders,” she was one of the teachers who had the greatest influence on me. She selected me for the Writers In Electronic Residence (WIER) Program at my school both years, and convinced my parents to let me take part in the program when they weren’t sure if was a good idea. I loved it so much, and I found myself wishing that they had the program in my high school. Unfortunately, they didn’t.
3. Mrs. Nancy Haaf: Of all the English teachers I had in my high school career, I think I learned the most through Mrs. Haaf about academics, empathy, and life. She was both the first high school English teacher and the last one. In fact, she was my teacher for three of the seven English classes I took. She told me that she thought I had a lot of potential as an English Literature student just as I was finishing my high school career, which was great for my confidence. Many of my experiences with her are ones that I will never forget.
4. Mrs. Morley: When I was in 10th grade, I had one of the hardest English teachers of my life up till then. She spoke about responsibility with a weird story about “carrying your own monkey,” and she wasn’t generally liked. I had her again in my last year of high school for a creative writing class called Writer’s Craft, and it was then that I realized how great she was. She was tough, didn’t play favorites, gave me confidence in my writing, and most importantly, listened to me and shared information about the world and her personal life because of the things that I was going through at the time. Her kindness and the way she pushed me to meet my responsibilities are unforgettable.
5. Dr. Carol Margaret Davison: University was the place where I came into myself. I had several important university professor mentors, but Dr. Carol Margaret Davison was the one who means the most to me till this day. She was one of my referees when I applied to grad school, she’s been a reference for me when I’ve applied for a new job, and she taught me about the books of my heart – Gothic literature. Finally, and most importantly, she is someone who took the time out of her busy schedule to listen to me and support me when I needed it.

Each of these five teachers have helped get me where I am today. They encouraged the small town girl I was to keep reading, learning, and dreaming, and they showed me that I had what it takes to become a highly educated person, even though I was the first person in my family to attend and graduate from university.  So, today, on World Teacher’s Day, I can’t help but thank them from the bottom of my heart for everything they’ve done for me and to thank all teachers for what they continue to do to make sure that our young people have the tools they need to succeed.

I also want to take a moment to share with my readers that not everyone is as lucky as I have been. Even though education should be a universal right, not everyone gets the same encouragement as I did. Maybe you are one of those people who are system didn’t reach, or maybe someone you know is, or maybe, it’s people who live in very different places and come from very different backgrounds who don’t have access to great teachers.  With this information in mind, I hope that you’ll take a minute to look over this infographic prepared by Grammarly about the children who don’t get the educational support that they need and maybe donate to an organization that wants to make sure that no child is left behind from the knowledge and educational experiences that children need:

This Infographic was brought to you today by Grammarly!

Thanks so much for your comment, Melanie! I agree with you completely with regard to these series – both this one and the Seven Series – from Orca. It totally makes sense to me when you say they’re connected, but not connected, too. I love that you can read them in any order you want, too. Though depending on the order you choose, you may find yourself wanting to reread one or more of the books again later.

I’m so glad that you enjoyed my interview with Kelley Armstrong. It’s totally fine if you recommend one of her non-YA series. I do read and enjoy some great adult fiction, too. I’ve only read a couple of werewolf books / series: the Shiver series and Sinner by Maggie Stiefvater and Jackson Pearce’s fairytale retelling companion novels. Oh, and The Mortal Instruments series, which contains werewolves, but isn’t strictly a werewolf series. Yes, that’s right…I haven’t read Twilight.

It was a lot of fun, but I really hope that I can interview Vicki Grant as well. Her book, Small Bones, was one of my faves in the series – such a fun, swoony read.

I’ve been really looking forward to getting my hands on this series of books. I think Orca is doing a great job of creating these series for YA readers that are connected but not completely connected – does that make sense? I bought the Seven series for my nephew and have been waiting for him to get reading them so I can borrow them – I can’t afford to buy them for both of us. Anyway, I really enjoyed this interview with Kelley Armstrong. I’ve been enjoying her Cainsville series. I discovered her after Twilight came out and I read Bitten and thought “this is what werewolves should really be like.” It isn’t a YA novel though. So glad you were able to do this interview, it must have been really fun for you.

When the publicist at Orca Books asked me whether I’d like to feature one of the Secrets Series authors as part of the official blog tour, I’m thrilled. Many of these Canadian authors featured in the series are completely new to me.

Kelley Armstrong is not an exception to this statement – in fact, this Gothic loving reader had never picked up any of her books before. Now that I have, I can’t believe how lucky I am to be able to interview her for YABookShelf.com, and I’m over the moon that one lucky U.S. or Canadian reader will win the Secrets 7-book box set through my blog. I hope that my questions and Kelley Armstrong’s thoughtful responses will get you excited to check out at least this book if not all the books in the series.

Now let’s dive right into the interview:

YA Book Shelf: In the epigraph of The Unquiet Past, you include a quotation from Albert Einstein who said, “The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion,” which is perfect for a book in which Tess, the main character, has visions of slipping into the past, but who finds herself unable to communicate with the “ghosts” she meets. Do you think that Einstein would have believed in the type of time travel that Tess’ retrocognition presents to readers?

Kelley Armstrong: Einstein theorized that time travel was possible, but he was looking at it as unidirectional, going forward. Traveling into the past is much more problematic, as countless stories have demonstrated! I find it easier to believe that there could be something like retrocognition, where one sees an image or replay from the past and is unable to influence it or interact with it.

YABookShelf: You already have a huge fan base of teen and adult readers, but at the same time, the Secrets series is a great opportunity for new readers to find and fall in love with your writing. What would you tell your long time fans are the biggest commonalities between The Unquiet Past and your backlist, and which book or series in your backlist (or forthcoming titles) would you recommend to those who read and fall in love with your writing through your contribution to the Secrets series?

KA: For my current readers, they’ll find that The Unquiet Past is a fairly typical Kelley Armstrong book—it’s a suspense thriller with a paranormal undercurrent and the sort of characters and themes readers expect to find in my work.

For new readers, the most obvious follow-up to The Unquiet Past is The Summoning, the first in the Darkest Powers trilogy. The protagonist in that trilogy is also dealing with seeing things—in her case, actual ghosts. It’s a very different plot, with a much larger cast, but it has a similar “feel” to it. It’s also aimed at a very similar age group, appropriate for ages 11 and up (my other YA aims a bit older, with more mature content.)

YABookShelf: If Billy – the only person who knows Tess’ secret that she has visions of slipping into the past because he has an equally sensitive secret for the 1960s – were a teen today, then perhaps he wouldn’t feel the need to hide who he was from his friends and family. Can you imagine a time when Tess will be able to share her secret as openly as Billy could today without being deemed delusional?

KA: That’s a tough question to answer, because outside a fictional realm, seeing and hearing things is a cause for concern. What I would say, then, is that I’d like to see a world where, if a teenager fears she’s seeing/hearing things, she feels as comfortable seeking help as she would if she found a lump on her leg. That is, I would like to see a world where mental illness is treated with the same respect and lack of fear/judgment that we expect with physical ailments.

YABookShelf: Tess is afraid that the seven eldest girls at the orphanage would call her crazy if they knew her secret, so she doesn’t tell them about the nightmares or waking visions that torment her. If people learned her secret and declared her mentally ill, what would happen to her, a 16-year-old girl in the 60s, in either Ontario or Quebec?

KA: She could have expected to be committed to a psychiatric institution. While such hospitals had come a long way from the Victorian “lunatic asylums,” the treatment of mental illness was still far from ideal. She could have expected electric shock therapy and other methods we now consider both damaging and inhumane, possibly even variations on the sleep deprivation experiments we see in the book.

YABookShelf: Other than Tess’ story, which other book in the Secrets series do you think your fans will enjoy most? And which other book in the Secrets series do you most admire and wish you’d have been able to write?

KA: There aren’t any books in the series that I don’t think would appeal to my readers. They all contain elements of mystery and suspense and romance, and my current readers could pick any one at random and find a thrilling read.

YABookShelf: I read that you were excited about the Secrets series because it’s the first time you got to be overt about the book’s Canadian setting. Are your books always set, even subtly so, in Canada? What is it about Canadian settings that are particularly conducive for Gothic novels?

KA: The majority of my books are set in the US. For YA, only the Darkness Rising trilogy is set in Canada (Vancouver Island.) In adult, the main narrators of three of my four series are Canadian, but the actual settings are about 50/50. I don’t know if Canada is more Gothic. My one adult series that has no Canadian characters or settings (Cainsville) is the one I call my contemporary Gothic series! I think the small-scale setting is more important for mood—the description of a town or a building rather than the general geographical location.

YABookShelf: One of the things that fascinated me most about The Unquiet Past was the creepy atmosphere you created for the abandoned house / asylum in Quebec. What kind of research did you have to do to make it realistic and foreboding?

KA: There’s a fair bit of “abandoned” research used in this novel, perhaps appropriate for that abandoned house! When I was researching MK-ULTRA for my adult series, Cainsville, I came across the McGill experiments, but couldn’t use them for that book. I also use an abandoned psychiatric complex in that series, and I was able to pull over some of that research for this book. The one used in the adult series is creepier and more unsettling. This is the tamer—and much smaller—version.

YABookShelf: The Unquiet Past – and the other books in the Secrets series – didn’t shy away from depicting racism in Canada between Jackson and both the Québécois(e) people he and Tess meet and the hippies who give them a ride to Montréal. Why was it important to show the racism that existed (and still does exist) in Canada against First Nations people?

KA: When I sit down to write characters, they “come” to me as an image, and then I work with that image. So Jackson came to me as Metis. That then meant diving into research on the Metis in the sixties and Aboriginal issues and the treatment he could expect. What’s important to me is not necessarily to purposely tackle those issues to make a point, but that if I imagine a character as Metis, I embrace it—I don’t say “Oh, that adds complications I don’t want to deal with in this story” and mentally recast the character. I do the research and I understand that I may make mistakes with characters who don’t share my own background, but I commit to doing my best.

YABookShelf: Over the course of the novel, Tess learns what her real name is. How does knowing her name change how Tess sees herself?

KA: A name is so important. A surname connects you to your past, to your family. Even a given name has meaning—why did your parents pick that particular one? For Tess, a real surname makes her real, in a way. It says she comes from somewhere. Even finding that her first name should be spelled and pronounced the French way gives her a sense of place and identity.

YABookShelf: Thanks so much for stopping by YABookShelf.com, Kelley! It’s been a pleasure to speak with you, and I can’t wait to see what my readers think of this Q&A.

Sound like a good book? It is, and so are the rest of the novels in the Secrets series, which makes me so excited to offer my Canadian and U.S. readers the opportunity to win the 7-book box set, featuring Innocent by Eric Walters, Shattered Glass by Teresa Toten, Stones on a Grave by Kathy Kacer, My Life Before Me by Norah McClintock, A Big Dose of Lucky by Marthe Jocelyn, Small Bones by Vicki Grant, and of course, The Unquiet Past by Kelley Armstrong.

Enter using the Rafflecopter widget below and good luck!

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Buy The Unquiet Past
Special price $13.38 Regular price: $14.95
Publisher: Orca Books
Format: Paperback
Reviewer: Melissa on October 1, 2015
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

It’s the beginning of June in 1964, and the Benevolent Home for Necessitous Girls burns to the ground. The vulnerable residents are thrust out into the world: new homes are found for the youngest girls, but the seven oldest orphans are given a few clues about their origins, $138 each, and the hope that they’ll find out something about their identities. Seven different Canadian YA authors, six of whom are women, get to tell the story of the oldest female orphans. Together, these seven books form the Secrets series, which were released simultaneously on September 29, 2015. One such author is Kelley Armstrong, who gets to tell the story of Tess. In Armstrong’s contribution to the series The Unquiet Truth, Tess learns that she can only hide the truth about who she is and why she has strange visions and recurring nightmares for so long. For as long as she can remember, these waking visions and bad dreams have tormented her, making her question her sanity. They make her wonder whether she inherited something terrible from the parents she has never known. In order to find out the truth, she’ll have to leave the only home she has ever known in Hope, Ontario. Along the way to her destination, she’ll be exposed to dangers the likes of which she could never imagine.

Before picking up The Unquiet Truth, I had never read anything by Kelley Armstrong, even though she is one of the most prolific Canadian authors of both YA and adult paranormal fiction. This book’s description immediately drew me into the book with it’s mix of Gothic and contemporary themes. In addition, the creepy, illustrated cover with fingers scratching through the cover art made me want to know more, so when I was offered the chance to review the entire series for a magazine, I jumped at the chance. When this experience led to an opportunity to feature Armstrong on my blog as part of the official Secrets blog tour, I couldn’t pass it up. If you’ve read either Armstrong’s contribution to the series or any of the other six books written by Eric Walters, Teresa Toten, Vicki Grant, Marthe Jocelyn, Norah McClintock, and Kathy Kacer, you’ll understand why.

Tess’ only clues are a disconnected phone number and an address, which lead her to a creepy mansion / abandoned insane asylum in Sainte-Suzanne, Quebec. Getting to her destination isn’t as easy as it might seem, especially for a young and pretty teen, who is on her own for the first time. Once she finally arrives at her destination, Armstrong pulls out all the stops to transport Tess, and the reader, from the everyday world into the uncanny one of the mostly abandoned building in Sainte-Suzanne. I say mostly because when she arrives there, Tess meets a Métis guy, named Jackson, who helps her track down information about her mom and what happened at the address in question.

During their search, Tess and Jackson attempt to interview many of the townspeople of Sainte-Suzanne to get to the bottom of what happened in the abandoned mansion. In addition, Tess’ psychic abilities help them further deduce what happened there 16 years ago and take them back to Montreal and McGill University’s Psychiatric department. From there, things go from pretty creepy to so much worse. Add in the allusions to some of the best Classic literature featuring Gothic concepts, themes, and sub-plots, such as Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry and prose, and the mad woman in the attic of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and it becomes abundantly clear that Armstrong is well versed in the Gothic literary canon and knows how to develop suspense in her readers. Through it all, I was just as invested in Tess’ story and finding out not only how her mom ended up in Sainte-Suzanne, especially when I realized that some of the sensory deprivation experiments mentioned really happened in Montreal.

Finally, not only is it set in a period of Tess and Jackson’s lives that is characterized by change, but also one where society is in a state of intense upheaval, reflecting the “personal is political” manifesto from second wave feminism. These changes are represented by Armstrong in the dangers that Tess faces by being a vulnerable girl on her own and the racial tension that Jackson experiences in small town Québec. Even in Jackson’s interactions with more progressive people, like a group of hippies who give him and Tess a lift, their understanding of First Nations people is based on little more than stereotypes and the belief that one group is identical to every other one. They have no idea that the Métis people and even other Native groups are distinct societies and thus, don’t have the same traditions as each other. In other words, even the most progressive people of the time had a lot to improve upon when it came to race relations, even in Canada, a country that prides itself on having a better history than that of the USA.

From the characters and paranormal magic to the Gothic perfection and tension between personal and societal changes, The Unquiet Past is the kind of book that Canadians must read if we ever hope to grow from the past that keeps knocking on the door to the present and future of our country.

Buy The Unquiet Past today and benefit from 10% off the regular price!

Did you know that September is National Suicide Prevention Month? I did, and when a publicist from JKS Communications asked if I wanted to help promote Michelle Levy‘s novel Not After Everything as part of this national awareness campaign, I didn’t hesitate for a second.

I couldn’t hesitate because suicide awareness and prevention are very important issues to me. A select number of my readers know that when I was 14, or less than three weeks before I turned 15, one of my aunts committed suicide. To be honest, she was one of my favorite aunts, the one who stuck up for me when other people in my family were either unable or unwilling, and I couldn’t help but have questions that are, even now, impossible to answer. When I was a teen, I used to listen to her copy of Smashing Pumpkins’ album Siamese Dream, which I’d borrowed from her before her death, and wonder why she couldn’t have waited, why she couldn’t have held off just a little while longer until she began to realize that it was “the greatest day [she]’d ever known.”

Since my aunt died, suicide has touched me in other ways. I know several other people who have attempted suicide or died from it, both family members and friends. This isn’t an easy thing for me to share publicly on my blog, but I thought, if there’s a chance that this interview and my story will help someone feel less alone or give them the courage to seek help if they need it before it’s too late, then I knew I had to share it. And now without further ado, here’s my interview with Michelle about Not After Everything: 

YA Book Shelf: At the beginning of Not After Everything, you show Tyler going through his photos of his mom (and him and his mom) and counting his hidden savings. How did you develop this type of ritualistic behavior for Tyler, and how does it relate to the experience of grieving for the loss of someone to suicide?

Michelle Levy: I felt that losing his mother to suicide made him feel utterly helpless and he needed a way to feel in control, a way to have some semblance of order in his messed up life.

YABookShelf: In an earlier interview, I read that Tyler’s angry voice from the beginning of the novel came to you first, and you wanted to explore what had made him this way. What were the next steps you had to take to fill in the blanks about his back story before you could piece together the rest of his character development and the plot?

ML: I started with an idea of who he was at the time of his mom’s suicide—the popular jock with a bright future—and then I kind of worked my way backward. I had to figure out his relationship with his mother and why her suicide made him more angry than sad. I had to figure out what would drive her to suicide, which led me to his father and his relationship with his father. Then I had to figure out why he was such an overachiever and what his school life was like, his friends, his girlfriend, etc., before I could figure out where his journey was going to take him now that he wanted nothing to do will all that.

YABookShelf: In addition to grief, Tyler is suffering from the physical and emotional abuse that his father dishes out regularly as well as neglect. Do you think that the verbal tirades are just as damaging to Tyler as the physical abuse, just in a different way?

ML: I think the emotional abuse is more damaging than the physical abuse. Physical wounds heal faster than psychological wounds in my experience.

YABookShelf: Yes, I think many people assume otherwise, but it’s also my experience that emotional and psychological abuse stick with someone for a lot longer, especially if they aren’t getting help with it.

Dave tells Tyler that “20% of suicides don’t leave a note,” but Tyler doesn’t think it makes sense for his highly organized mom. Why would Tyler’s mom – and anyone else like her – not leave an explanation, especially if it’s so uncharacteristic of her usual behavior?

ML: I read as much as I could find on this topic as I was writing and revising. The idea that someone would just leave you without any explanation floored me. I learned that there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to who left a note and who didn’t, so I thought it would be especially frustrating for someone who was highly organized, who seemed the type to leave a note, not to. And scarily, the statistics have changed as more and more people began doing research on this topic. Even since my book went to print. The statistic today is thought to be that only somewhere between 15 to 38 percent of people actually leave a note.

YABookShelf: Wow…that’s incredible to me, Michelle. Though I think that even in the cases where someone does leave a note, the explanation can never really seem adequate, but it would be more frustrating not to have answer that you could cover to terms with eventually.

I’m sure that Not After Everything wasn’t an easy book to write, but I’m so glad you did. What was your favorite scene to write?

ML: Thank you! My favorite scenes to write were the early scenes with Tyler and Jordyn. The stuff where she’s not putting up with him and he’s enjoying it so he pushes her buttons even more to get an even bigger reaction. They had some fun banter in those scenes.

YABookShelf: During the scene in which Henry tells Tyler about his brother, I couldn’t help but cry because I know how important that moment of connection is for someone who has lost a loved one to suicide? Did you find yourself crying at any point while writing this book?

ML: Oh, I cried. A lot. Pretty much every time Tyler cries in the book I cried along with him.

YABookShelf: Not After Everything is filled with pop culture references to films, TV shows, YouTube videos, and even Lifetime movie clichés. How did you develop Tyler’s knowledge base?

ML: Ooh, what a great question! I pictured Tyler in his younger years watching a lot of television with his mom, because I imagined that was her escape from reality.

YABookShelf: Ooh…yes, I can totally see that being the case. Thanks so much for sharing that explanation.

Other than Tyler, who was your favorite character to write?

ML: I love Jordyn. She’s so bold and sassy. I wish I’d had her spunk in high school. I also really loved writing Dr. Dave.

YABookShelf: Yes, Jordyn is great. I can totally see why you loved writing her, and I also loved the scenes with Dr. Dave, in part, because I loved that Tyler had someone he could turn to when he felt ready to be completely honest about what was going on with him.

After his mother’s suicide, Tyler is forced to attend counselling with Dr. Dave, but only until his 18th birthday, regardless of whether the treatment plan had been successful or not. Is there anything that you would change about the way mental health treatment is administered for teens and other vulnerable people if you had the power to do so?

ML: Oh, man. Excellent question! First of all, I get extremely frustrated when people are too ashamed to get help. I would love for it to not be such a taboo thing. I suffer from depression and anxiety and have no problem talking about it. Hopefully it’ll encourage someone else not to be ashamed. Secondly, our insurance needs to get with it and provide much better coverage for mental health. Much better. And lastly, some of the most vulnerable people simply can’t afford mental healthcare. This needs to change. Immediately. In the real world a kid like Tyler might not get the kind of support he does in the book with Dr. Dave. And if he would’ve had to pay for it, forget it. He can’t afford food let alone therapy. Help shouldn’t be a privilege, it should be a given.

YABookShelf: Great answer, Michelle! I agree with all the points you mention, in part, because I’ve lost some people I really love to their depression and battles, on their own, with mental health. And the consequences for a society that doesn’t care for the most vulnerable people in this regard…they’re immeasurable.

And finally, since I know you worked as a casting director for Six Feet Under, one of my all-time favorite shows, what was the role you were most excited to cast and what episode did you like the best?

ML: Unfortunately, I didn’t start working on the show until season two, so I wasn’t involved in the original casting, which is some of the best casting for a series, movie, anything, ever. Imho. From the episodes I worked on, my favorite role was the guy who carjacks David (Michael C. Hall) in a season four episode called “That’s My Dog.” The character was supposed to be this sweet, unassuming guy who David feels sorry for and gladly helps, who then turns out to be a complete psychopath. Michael Weston played the character brilliantly and continues to be one of my favorite actors out there after doing that role exactly how I pictured it when reading the script. I mean exactly.

And my favorite episode is probably the pilot. What a way to set up a series! It was like a promise of how this series was going to be in a whole other league than anything else out there. I remember watching that pilot episode and immediately knowing it was going to be my favorite show. And then I got to work on it!

YABookShelf: YES!!! That episode with David totally took me by surprise. So well done. And yes, the pilot was incredible, but I’m partial to the finale. I think it’s one of the best send offs of any series, like a love letter to the characters and the fans.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog as part of September’s Suicide Awareness Month. I really enjoyed your début novel, and I can’t wait to see what your next contemporary YA book is about!

ML: Thank you!!!

About Not After Everything:

A gritty but hopeful love story about two struggling teens—great for fans of The Spectacular Now, Willow, and Eleanor and Park.

Tyler has a football scholarship to Stanford, a hot girlfriend, and a reliable army of friends to party with. Then his mom kills herself. And Tyler lets it all go. Now he needs to dodge what his dad is offering (verbal tirades and abuse) and earn what his dad isn’t (money). Tyler finds a job that crashes him into Jordyn, his former childhood friend turned angry-loner goth-girl. She brings Tyler an unexpected reprieve from the never-ending pity party his life has become. How could he not fall for her? But with his dad more brutally unpredictable than ever, Tyler knows he can’t risk bringing Jordyn too deeply into the chaos. So when violence rocks his world again, will it be Jordyn who shows him the way to a hopeful future? Or after everything, will Tyler have to find it in himself?

Add Not After Everything to your Goodreads TBR!

Okay, so I know that up till now I haven’t participated in a lot of purely promotional posts on YABookShelf.com, but today I wanted to share the cover of a book that I’m really excited to read. True Born releases on May 3, 2016 from Entangled TEEN, and it was written by L.E. Sterling, a Canadian author who happens to be an M.A. graduate of the same university I attended in Montreal.

True Born releases on May 3, 2016

About True Born (True Born, #1):

Welcome to Dominion City.

After the great Plague descended, the world population was decimated…and their genetics damaged beyond repair.

The Lasters wait hopelessly for their genes to self-destruct. The Splicers pay for expensive treatments that might prolong their life. The plague-resistant True Borns are as mysterious as they are feared…

And then there’s Lucy Fox and her identical twin sister, Margot. After endless tests, no one wants to reveal what they are.

When Margot disappears, a desperate Lucy has no choice but to put her faith in the True Borns, led by the charismatic Nolan Storm and the beautiful but deadly Jared Price. As Lucy and the True Borns set out to rescue her sister, they stumble upon a vast conspiracy stretching from Dominion’s street preachers to shady Russian tycoons. But why target the Fox sisters?

As they say in Dominion, it’s in the blood.

Add True Born to your Goodreads’ TBR

Find out more about L.E. Sterling

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Buy Not After Everything
Special price $14.14 Regular price: $17.99
Publisher: Dial
Format: Hardcover
Reviewer: Melissa on September 16, 2015
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Michelle Levy’s debut YA novel, Not After Everything has been called gritty but hopeful love story about two struggling teens – great for fans of The Spectacular Now, Willow, and Eleanor and Park, and once you read it, you’ll understand why. Tyler has a football scholarship to Stanford, a hot cheerleader girlfriend, and a reliable army of friends to party with when the mood strikes. He seems to have everything a seventeen-year-old guy could want. But then his mom kills herself, and suddenly, nothing that he has seems to matter anymore. Now he needs to dodge his dad’s emotional and physical abuse, and earn what his dad refuses to share with him (money). Tyler finds a job that pushes him back into the life of Jordyn, a former childhood friend turned angry-loner goth-girl. With Jordyn, Tyler gets an unexpected reprieve from the pity party that his life has become, so how could he not fall for her? However, as his dad becomes even more brutally unpredictable, Tyler knows that he can’t risk bringing Jordyn too far into the chaos that is his life. Will Jordyn be able to show him the way to a hopeful future or after everything goes down, will Tyler have to find it for himself?

Since I started YABookShelf.com back in 2010, I’ve read a lot of contemporary YA novels that deal with depression, suicidal ideation, and a teen character experiencing grief over the loss of a friend or family member to suicide. They are important topics, in my opinion, for books to explore, so teens that are going through these situations (or know someone who is) can feel a little less alone. Therefore, when a publicist from JKS Communications contacted me about promoting Not After Everything during National Suicide Prevention Month in September, I immediately knew that I wanted to be a part of it especially when it was compared to two books I enjoyed: Tim Tharp’s The Spectacular Now and Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park. Today, I’m so glad that I followed my instincts about this one because not only was it a great story, but also it’s the only YA novel I’ve read that explores what it’s like for a male teen to go through the suicide of a parent. I’ve read other books where it’s a female MC in the same place, but the more books that do a good job on this topic, the more likely that it’ll find the reader who needs it desperately.

Two of the things that I loved most about Not After Everything were how authentic Tyler’s voice was and how well Levy understands what it means to be someone who is grieving for his mother’s sudden suicide. (And yes, I get that these points are interrelated, that without the latter, Levy wouldn’t have been able to deliver a convincing, three-dimensional character.) Not only does Tyler display the guilt and anger that everyone who has lost someone to suicide would understand, but also she doesn’t shy away from depicting the sexual parts of Tyler’s life in much the same way that Tharp developed the character of Sutter Keely. In other words, Tyler isn’t just a good female authored male POV, but also one that stands up to the kind of scrutiny that teens of either gender would give it and come out as believable.

If you’ve read the description, then you know that Not After Everything is not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination, but it is one that will stick with readers long after they finish the last page. Readers may find themselves crying at some points as I did when Tyler was able to connect with someone else who understands what he is going through, but it’s not all depressing. In fact, Levy demonstrates through Tyler’s character arc that there are some things to be hopeful about and even though he is going through a tough time doesn’t mean that he can’t be a source of strength for someone else when they need it. Moreover, Tyler experiences moments of real joy with and love from Jordyn, Henry, Kelly, and his mother’s dog, Captain. Together, in different ways, they make him realize that he isn’t stuck in this terrible existence, but if he wants to grab them, good things are waiting for him.

Not After Everything is a realistic depiction of the type of grief that a teen boy would experience if his mother committed suicide as well as the way it affects other people in the community. Michelle Levy doesn’t tie everything up in a perfect bow because that’s not the way life after suicide works, but it can get more hopeful, so she gives readers and Tyler the possibility to hope in a dark time, the joy of laughter during a period of sadness, and the opportunity for a rich and full life despite the “what ifs” and “whys” that might never go away completely.

Buy Not After Everything today and benefit from 21% off the regular price!

Last week, I finally posted my review of a book that I’ve been waiting to read for five years. Yes, five years! It’s called Alchemy’s Daughter, and was written by Mary A. Osborne, who also happens to be one of the first authors I reviewed on YABookShelf.com back when I started it in 2010. Back then, I reviewed her début, historical YA novel, Nonna’s Book Of Memories featuring Emilia during the Italian art world during the Renaissance and was very excited by the prospect of the then forthcoming prequel about her grandmother, Santina.

While it took far longer than I expected to see the finished copy of the prequel, I’m so happy that I’ve had the chance to read it finally. I really enjoyed learning about the tumultuous period before and after the Bubonic Plague begins sweeping through Europe through the eyes of a strong, independent woman, and I’m sure that you will, too. Today, as the subject heading of this post suggests, you have a chance to win one of two copies of this award-winning book, Alchemy’s Daughter.

This giveaway is open to residents of the US and Canada only, as per the publishers specifications, and it is open from now to August 28, 2015 at 11:59 PM EST. 

Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below for your chance to win, and may the odds be ever in your favor!

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