A weekly feature I started to showcase the exciting new releases hitting shelves this week.
November 21
The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn MacklerRazorbillIt's 1996, and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet.
Emma just got her first computer and an America Online CD-ROM.
Josh is her best friend. They power up and log on--and discover themselves on Facebook, fifteen years in the future.
Everybody wonders what their Destiny will be. Josh and Emma are about to find out.
November 22
Saving June by Hannah HarringtonHarlequinTeenMy Review‘If she’d waited less than two weeks, she’d be June who died in June. But I guess my sister didn�
Word Count: 22063/50000
Day: 14/30
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Like many other bloggers, I am participating in this year's
National Novel Writing Month for the first time. I thought it would be fun to touch base each week and see how everyone is progressing, as well as cheer each other on!
I can't believe we almost at the halfway point! November is flying by! I also can't believe I've actually written 22063 words O_O. It blows my mind a little bit to think about it. I'm pleased with the progression of the plot though. I have to say, when I'm thinking ideas over in my mind it seems like they could never be long enough to be a book, but once you actually start putting words on paper, things really get fleshed out. Have you noticed that? So even ideas that might seem too small could turn in to something big =)
One thing I am struggling with is the romantic development. I'm one of those people who HATES when Heroine/Hero are overly cozy after knowing each other only a week. Doing NaNo, I've kind of lost track of the days passing a little bit in my story, but I know it hasn't been
that long. But I find myself bored with the "oh, nice to meet you" bits and more interested in the cozy bits. Do you have trouble with that? It seems harder to get that part right than the rest of the plot, though that might just be because I'm overly conscious of it in other books.
I think this week's links need to be broken down into inspiration/encouragement and the actual tips.
Inspiration:
Word Count: 0/50000
Day: -1/30
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Like many other bloggers, I am participating in this year's
National Novel Writing Month for the first time. I thought it would be fun to touch base each week and see how everyone is progressing.
NaNoWriMo doesn't officially kick off until tomorrow, and we're not allowed to begin writing yet -- but I know there's a lot of plotting and outlining and brainstorming going on! I've been doing lots of research on the fey for the novel I'm planning (I loooove the fey). It's an idea I've had floating around in my head for a while, but it's evolved so much since then that it's hardly recognizable as the original idea! Just last night, I completely changed the arc of the plot -- but I'm really satisfied with where it's going now.
I pretty much know the plot of my novel, but I still have something kind of important to do before the month officially begins: Choose a name for the heroine!
She has silver eyes and blond hair, and is fierce with a sword.
None of the names I've narrowed it down to seem quite right. She's fey, so I wanted something a little different: Aurora, Luz, Luce, Regan, Aspen, Bryony, Dahlia, Branwen, Thalli, Wick, Thalia, Aemilia, Lichen, Aurelia, Ella, Nissa.
Decisions, decisions! What do you think? Do any of those names seem like a good fit? Do you have another suggestion? (Thanks to everyone who made suggestions on Twitter!)
I'm also using
Evernote to keep track of my notes and ideas, and MS Word for the writing. I tried out
Scrivener and
yWriter, but I just don't understand them -- where do you do the actual WRITING within those programs? Maybe I'm just missing something.
A lot of authors have great writing advice out there. Each week I'll share some links to tips I found particularly insightful.
By: Casey (The Bookish Type),
on 10/30/2011
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A weekly feature I started to showcase the exciting new releases hitting shelves this week.
Once again, I haven't done one of these since everything got so crazy at the beginning of October. I'm going to provide dates and links for all the backlisted releases, and do this week's releases like I normally do.
October 10
October 11
By: Casey (The Bookish Type),
on 10/2/2011
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A weekly feature I started to showcase the exciting new releases hitting shelves this week.
October 3
In the Forests of the Night (Goblin Wars #2) by Kersten HamiltonClarion BooksTeagan, Finn, and Aiden have rescued Tea's and Aiden's father and have made it out of Mag Mell alive, bringing a few new friends with them. But The Dark Man's forces are hot on their heels. Back in Chicago, Teagan soon realizes that she is not the target of the goblins. In fact, the goblins call her princess, and call her to come out and play. Something is happening to her, and she suspects it’s an infection she picked up in Mag Mell. An infected cat-sídhe becomes her test subject, and Teagan is determined to cure it of the sickness that seems to rot its flesh. If she can find a cure for the cat-sídhe, then maybe there is hope for her.
Meanwhile, Kyle and Isabeau, Teagan’s goblin cousins, show up in her school, disguised as a substitute teacher and a foreign exchange student. They are sure she will come back to Mag Mell, as goblin blood is never passive. Once awoken, it will burn away every other aspect of her being, leaving her pure and solely goblin. When the process is complete, she will belong to Fear Doirich, the Dark Man. It is just a matter of time. In the meantime, Kyle and Isabeau are happy to entertain themselves by trying to seduce, kidnap, or kill Teagan’s family and friends.
Tea knows she doesn’t have much time left, and she refuses to leave Finn to be hunted to the death or her family to be tortured and killed. A wild Stormrider, born to rule and reign, is growing stronger inside her, but as long as she can hold on, she’s still Teagan Wylltson, who plans to be a veterinarian and who heals the sick and hurting. The disease that’s destroying her—that’s destroying them all—has a name: Fear Doirich.
And Teagan Wylltson is not going to let him win.
5 Comments on New Release Roundup: October 2 - 8, 2011, last added: 10/3/2011
By:
Jennifer Wylie,
on 9/30/2011
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I’ve been an obsessive reader for as long as I can remember. I give my brother a lot of the credit (blame?) for this. Growing up army brats, our family was always on the move. We had no sense of “home,” no long term friends. We had books. Perhaps my brother, five years older than me, gave me his books to keep me out of his hair. It worked. I remember reading Robinson Crusoe, The Swiss Family Robinson, The Three Musketeers, stories by Edgar Allan Poe, and my particular favorite, The Count of Monte Cristo. Yes, boy books. An incredible wealth of books—to this day my brother is one of the few people I know who reads as much or more than I do—flowed in my direction. But when I was thirteen, my brother went away to college, leaving me to find my own books. I remember walking through the library, pulling anything off the shelf that looked interesting. I ended up reading Henry Miller, D. H. Lawrence, Hemmingway, James Jones—my affinity for boy mind was apparently unabated or else my brother asserted his influence from afar!
Around this same time, I developed a new passion. My mother is a safari director in East Africa. I first heard about the Ngorongoro Crater and the Leakeys from her. She may have given me the first book I read on the subject of human evolution. Wherever I got it, I was hooked. I read every paleoarchaeology book I could get my hands on. Eventually I earned a degree in anthropology and became an archaeologist. I never fulfilled my dream of working on a paleo site—I discovered early that field work isn’t for me.
I’m a writer.
My twin passions came together in writing my novel, Thrall. The characters in Thrall are anatomically fully modern. It’s their minds that are at a critical point of evolution—they are making the transition from “group think” to being individual personalities, the kind of people who make art, and who will eventually go on to write the books we all love to read.
About the Author
Kimberly Todd Wade earned a degree in anthropology from the University of Miami and performed graduate studies at Tulane University. She worked as an archaeologist for fourteen years, including field work in Belize, Hawaii and Palau. In addition to writing, she is a student of American finger-style guitar and a lover of blues and ragtime music.
Visit Kimberly at her Blog and check out Thrall at Amazon and B&N
By: Casey (The Bookish Type),
on 9/25/2011
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A weekly feature I started to showcase the exciting new releases hitting shelves this week.
September 27
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle HodkinSimon & Schuster Children's PublishingMy ReviewMara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.
It can.
She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.
There is.
She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.
She's wrong.
My Beating Teenage Heart by C. K. Kelly MartinRandom House Books for Young ReadersAshlyn Baptiste is falling. One moment she was nothing—no memories, no self—and then suddenly, she's plummeting through a sea of stars. Is she in a coma? She doesn't remember dying, and she has no memories of the life she left
By: Casey (The Bookish Type),
on 9/18/2011
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On Friday, EW.com revealed the cover art for Insurgent, the sequel to Veronica Roth's bestselling debut Divergent. Check it out:Coming May 2012!
One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.
Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.
I LOVED
Divergent, so I'm really excited for this sequel. I really love the cover motif they have going on -- it doesn't make sense until you read the book and then you go "OHHHH". This is really pretty -- I love the swirling tree, even if I'm not sure what it means.
Alethea Kontis recently revealed the cover for her upcoming novel Enchanted. Check it out:Coming May 8, 2012!
It isn’t easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.
When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s family despises.
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By: Casey (The Bookish Type),
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A weekly feature I started to showcase the exciting new releases hitting shelves this week.
September 19
Dark of the Moon by Tracy BarrettHarcourt Children's BooksAriadne is destined to become a goddess of the moon. She leads a lonely life, filled with hours of rigorous training by stern priestesses. Her former friends no longer dare to look at her, much less speak to her. All that she has left are her mother and her beloved, misshapen brother Asterion, who must be held captive below the palace for his own safety.
So when a ship arrives one spring day, bearing a tribute of slaves from Athens, Ariadne sneaks out to meet it. These newcomers don’t know the ways of Krete; perhaps they won’t be afraid of a girl who will someday be a powerful goddess. And indeed she meets Theseus, the son of the king of Athens. Ariadne finds herself drawn to the newcomer, and soon they form a friendship—one that could perhaps become something more.
Yet Theseus is doomed to die as an offering to the Minotaur, that monster beneath the palace—unless he can kill the beast first. And that "monster" is Ariadne’s brother . . .
Pregnant Pause by Han Nolan
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New Release Roundup: September 18 - 24, 2011, last added: 9/18/2011
By: Casey (The Bookish Type),
on 9/14/2011
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Frequently, authors (and
Publishers Weekly) announce upcoming new series loooooong before there is pretty cover art or even a firm release date -- which makes it hard to include them for Waiting on Wednesday. However, their teasery descriptions are so exciting that I just have to share them. So, I'm going to start posting a roundup of exciting new book deals. Since this is the first one, I'm going to include a few that were announced a while back. (Click the titles to add them on Goodreads)
The Diviners by Libba Bray2012 | Little, Brown Books for Young ReadersAuthor of the
Gemma Doyle trilogy,
Going Bovine,
Beauty Queens, & more
A supernatural series set in Manhattan during the 1920s that follows a teen heroine reminiscent of two of the era's most famous literary women—Zelda Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker. The story will be a wild new ride full of dames and dapper dons, jazz babies and Prohibition-defying parties, conspiracy and prophecy—and all manner of things that go bump in the neon-drenched night.
Summer 2012 | Putnam
First in a new trilogy about a high school Miss Popularity whose world changes when a funny thing happens on the way to the (Homecoming) coronation: she's recruited into the Paladins, a supernatural sect of bodyguards sworn to protect those who will play an important role in the future, and charged with saving her archnemesis even if it means sacrificing her place as queen bee.
We're ridiculously delighted to be featured this week in the Meet the Horror Bloggers series over at Zombo's Closet of Horror. It's a real honour to be mentioned on such an amazing site!
Be sure to check it out! And many thanks to John, the man behind the awesome Zombo's Closet, for having us!
On this day in 1888 a terrible storm hit the plain states in America. People were caught unawares because the weather had been so warm, and when the storm hit many children were stranded in their school houses. Some children tried to make their way home and were lost in the storm. Numerous lives were lost, but there were also those lucky ones who found a haystack to shelter in, or who stumbled across a barn and who were thus saved.
Take a look at the books I have reviewed about this historic event in the
School Children's Blizzard Feature.
On July 28th, 1914 several young Serbian patriots put an operation into motion that would have terrible consequences in the years to come. By the end of that day, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife were dead. The assassination provided the Austro-Hungarian leadership with the excuse they needed to declare war on Serbia. By early August Russia, Germany, France, and Great Britain were also involved in the conflict. At that time everyone thought that the war would end in just a few months. Instead it lasted for four long years, and by the end of it, more that sixteen million soldiers and civilians were dead.
These days very few people think about or remember what took place during those four terrible years. We forget too that the seeds for World War II were germinated during World War I. Germany was humiliated and bankrupted by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and Adolf Hitler took advantage of German anger and frustration to take power.
Though we tend to remember those who died during World War I on November 11th, I think we should also try to understand why the war began in the first place. You will find some wonderful books for young people about World War I on the TTLG website on the
World War I feature page. I hope you find something here that interests you.
Forty years ago today, human beings walked on the moon for the first time. As millions of people watched, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and took those first incredible steps. In honor of this anniversary, many publishers have put out new books for children about this extraordinary event. I have been lucky enough to review some of these books over the last few weeks, and now you can see my reviews on the Through the Looking Glass Book Review website in the Man goes to the Moon feature. There are some wonderful titles in this collection, and I hope you find a title or two that you would like add to your library.
Here is a video of that famous landing. Enjoy!
Santa sorts out good or bad celebrities.
Fan mail below.
Illo for story about what to get teens for Christmas. Top of the list of what teens DIDN’T WANT, was socks, so I took it a little bit further.
A reader didn’t get it.
It's a surf bro, it's a zombie. it's a Brombie!
Illo for the daytona Beach News-Journal. Real Estate Owned is the term for bank-owned houses post-foreclosure.
I dig chicks.
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Aw, man, these quotes are making me want to re-read the book! Only a few more weeks 'till winter break; then I can re-read. :P Go Mara!
I feel the same way. I loaned mine out to a friend. I might have to call them up and tell them their time's up! Love Mara!