Friday, October 20, 2017

Book Review: All The Crooked Saints

 All The Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater

Released: October 10th, 2017
Read: October 2017
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Format: ARC, 311 pages
Series: n/a

Description from GoodReads: Here is a thing everyone wants: a miracle.
Here is a thing everyone fears: what it takes to get one.
   Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado is likely to find a landscape of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls, estranged affections, one or two orphans, and a sky full of watchful desert stars.
   At the heart of this place you will find the Soria family, who all have the ability to perform unusual miracles. And at the heart of this family are three cousins longing to change its future: Beatriz, the girl without feelings, who wants only to be free to examine her thoughts; Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, who performs miracles for everyone but himself; and Joaquin, who spends his nights running a renegade radio station under the name Diablo Diablo.
   They are all looking for a miracle. But the miracles of Bicho Raro are never quite what you expect.


Review: This book is kind of like a bedtime story. The narrator meanders and builds the world and characters so you can fall in love with each of them in turn. I don't mean it as an insult when I say that there's no pulse-pounding, gut-wrenching action. It's something I haven't seen before, and I really like it. There's a lot of character. If you can picture a bunch of characters standing out in the desert, you are about halfway to the amount of characters in the story, and you didn't even count the desert as one. Sometimes, like a true bedtime storyteller, the names or backstories get a little confusing. (#itsDarlenesRooster) But all the characters are lovely, with complex but simple wants and fears that are developed through clear story arcs. Like I said, the narrator meanders. The book describes side character's side characters background stories. It compares radio waves to miracles, and informs us in detail of a plant that takes over its environment. The intricate details set the storybook tone throughout the book. Altogether, the novel has a languid, bedtime storyteller feel that may bore some people, but I found it interesting and relaxing.

Friday, October 13, 2017

Blog Tour: Sparked





Hey all! Today I'm bringing you a spotlight post for Sparked! Be sure to let me know what you think of the book!



Title: SPARKED
Author: Helena Echlin & Malena Watrous
Pub. Date: October 3, 2017
Publisher: Geek & Sundry
Pages: 310
Formats: Hardcover, eBook
Find it: Amazon, B&N, TBD, Goodreads

Fifteen-year-old Laurel Goodwin wakes up to find her older sister Ivy missing from their Airstream trailer in the Oregon redwoods. A recurring nightmare convinces her that Ivy was abducted, but no one takes her dream seriously, including her mom. Laurel, a loner, has to learn to ask for help, and Jasper Blake, a mysterious new kid who shares her love of old books, quickly becomes her ally. Together they find their quiet town holds a deep secret and is the epicenter of a dark prophecy. 
Laurel soon learns that her worst enemies, mean girls Peyton Andersen and Mei Rosen, are developing powers that she needs to find and save Ivy. With time running out, Laurel realizes that power doesn't always take the form that you expect. And once she learns to look beyond her snap judgments, she develops an unexpected gift of her own.

Read a sneak peak of SPARKED!

About Helena and Malena: 

Hello! We are both novelists, but if you've ever tried to write anything, you know that writing can be a lonely, angst-filled business. So one night over a cocktail or two, we came up with a solution: write our next book together. Malena already had an idea: a girl's sister is kidnapped and she has to rely on mean girls with superpowers to get her sister back. We couldn't resist seeing where that story would take us – a wild ride that includes a loner girl who wants to be a writer and a gorgeous boy who can shoot fire from his eyes but also loves to talk about books. And an ancient Zoroastrian prophecy. And pie shakes. (OK, so maybe we got a little carried away.)
We've both published solo novels (check them out here and here) and had no idea how co-writing would work out, but we pounded out the first draft in a white-hot frenzy of inspiration we called "the Vortex." One of us would write a scene and send it to the other with a note: "My apartment is a pigsty and I haven't eaten all day. #inthevortex." We wrote the book we wanted to read as teenagers: a supernatural thriller with healthy doses of horror and humor. Oh, and of course there's romance. You have to wait a long time for the only kiss in the book, but isn't that the case with all the best kisses in books?
Website | Twitter 



Giveaway Details:

3 winners will receive a finished copy of SPARKED, US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Tour Schedule:

Week One:
10/2/2017- Literary Meanderings- Interview
10/2/2017- Zach's YA Reviews- Review

10/3/2017- BookHounds- Guest Post
10/3/2017- The Desert Bibliophile- Review

10/4/2017- Two Chicks on Books- Interview
10/4/2017- Rachel's Book Reviews- Review

10/5/2017- Wandering Bark Books- Guest Post
10/5/2017- A Gingerly Review- Review

10/6/2017- Rainy Day Reviews- Excerpt
10/6/2017- Bibliobakes- Review

Week Two:
10/9/2017- Margie's Must Reads- Guest Post
10/9/2017- YA Book Madness- Review

10/10/2017- Bibliobibuli YA- Interview
10/10/2017- The Best Books Ever- Review

10/11/2017- Tales of the Ravenous Reader- Launch Coverage
10/11/2017- the bookdragon- Review

10/12/2017- YA and Wine- Interview

10/13/2017- Owl Always Be Reading- Excerpt
10/13/2017- Nerdophiles- Review

That's all for today!
Happy Reading,

Mari