I discovered Poison by Bridget Zinn in a bit of a different way than I discover most books. I noticed a flux of updates on Twitter about helping spread word about an author’s debut, because she couldn’t do it herself. Curious, I followed one of the links, where I learned Bridget’s bittersweet story: she had finally achieved her dream of publication, but hadn’t lived to see it. Bridget died of colon cancer in 2011.

But her story continued, carried on by her family, friends, and colleagues. The reading and writing community banded together to promote Bridget’s book, a lighthearted fantasy about an assassin and a magical piglet. Bridget’s story, combined with my own love of fantasy, pushed this book up to must-read status for me.

The Plot (from Goodreads):

Sixteen-year-old Kyra, a highly-skilled potions master, is the only one who knows her kingdom is on the verge of destruction—which means she’s the only one who can save it. Faced with no other choice, Kyra decides to do what she does best: poison the kingdom’s future ruler, who also happens to be her former best friend.

But, for the first time ever, her poisoned dart . . . misses.

Now a fugitive instead of a hero, Kyra is caught in a game of hide-and-seek with the king’s army and her potioner ex-boyfriend, Hal. At least she’s not alone. She’s armed with her vital potions, a too-cute pig, and Fred, the charming adventurer she can’t stop thinking about. Kyra is determined to get herself a second chance (at murder), but will she be able to find and defeat the princess before Hal and the army find her?

Kyra is not your typical murderer, and she’s certainly no damsel-in-distress—she’s the lovable and quick-witted hero of this romantic novel that has all the right ingredients to make teen girls swoon.

My Thoughts:

Poison is different from most of the fantasy I’ve read, either YA or otherwise.  It’s lighthearted and whimsical, and never takes itself too seriously. I’ll admit, my personal preference normally trends a bit darker, but Poison was a fun read that kept me smiling from beginning to end.

From the first few pages, it becomes clear that Poison is a different type of high fantasy. It’s not Lord of the Rings. It’s not even The Princess Bride. Don’t let this scare you, but if I had to find something to liken it to in tone, I’d probably have to pick…A Knight’s Tale. Yes, that terrible Heath Ledger movie. (That I kind of love anyway. Shh, don’t tell.) It’s got that same mix of medieval setting with modern language and humor, and though the stakes are high, the situation never really feels truly dire, because that’s not the tone of the story.

Kyra isn’t the most likable heroine I’ve ever read, but she’s fun. As the Master-Potioner-turned-attempted-assassin, she doesn’t really turn the trope on its head, but she gives it a refreshing spin. She has her share of cleverness, but also isn’t immune to the semi-regular embarrassment that comes with her not-so -developed social skills. But she doesn’t go SO far into the land of the socially inept that it becomes strange that she catches the eye of the Good Looking Guy. Whose name is Fred, by the way.

Fred is a fun character. Yes, he does arrive on the scene as Good Looking Guy, but he quickly displays a carefree and quirky personality that won me over. But the real star of the story, in my opinion, is Rosie the Magical Piglet.

You know a story is going to be fun when there’s a magical piglet involved.

Together, Kyra, Fred, and Rosie search for the princess, thwart bad guys, and endeavor to save the kingdom. There’s magic in the from of witches and potions, but no sweeping, glittery spectacles. There’s road trips and sword fights and court intrigue, but with none of the grittiness that normally accompanies these things in fantasy. Part of me missed the grit (seriously, I think this was the best fed and least financially challenged group of fantasy travelers I’ve ever encountered), but grit would have clashed with the playful tone of the book.

Poison is a fun, frolicking adventure that enjoys making its readers smile and laugh.  The pages turned quickly, and the plot kept me engaged from beginning to end. If you’re looking for something fun, friendly, and full of whimsy, check it out.

Received an advance digital copy from NetGalley for review.

I was a huge fan of Julie Kagawa’s The Immortal Rules, even though I was a little hesitant at first. Vampire dystopian? Really? Haven’t both those genres been beaten to death with the redundancy stick, resurrected into genre zombies, and then been decapitated with a sword dipped in the blood of a dead horse?

But then I read it, and I loved it. Julie Kagawa’s fluid prose, her complete willingness to dive into the nitty gritty elements of her world, and her unique spin on both the vampire and dystopian genres won me over almost immediately. So when I saw the sequel, The Eternity Cure, was up for review on NetGalley, I requested the heck out of it.

Okay, so you can really only request one way, and there is no way to make an emphatic request, but if there was, I would have done it. I would have strenuously requested.

(NetGalley: “Oh, you strenuously request? Then we’ll take some time and reconsider.”)

I’m getting away from myself here. LET’S TALK ABOUT THE BOOK.

The Plot (from Goodreads):

Allison Sekemoto has vowed to rescue her creator, Kanin, who is being held hostage and tortured by the psychotic vampire Sarren. The call of blood leads her back to the beginning—New Covington and the Fringe, and a vampire prince who wants her dead yet may become her wary ally.

Even as Allie faces shocking revelations and heartbreak like she’s never known, a new strain of the Red Lung virus that decimated humanity is rising to threaten human and vampire alike.

My Thoughts:

The Eternity Cure picks up a few months after The Immortal Rules leaves off, after Allie has left behind her human friends – including Zeke, the human boy she had grown to love – at Eden, the last remaining vampire-free city. Now she’s using her sire bond – a psychic link with the vampire who created her – to track Kanin, and it leads her to her former home, where she encounters a new, deadly plague, as well as some faces from her past she thought were gone forever.

Just like in The Immortal Rules, Julie Kagawa does not shy away from the ugliness of her world. These vampires are not glamorous (even the glamorous ones have an ick-factor), and the world they rule is beyond grim. This is a series where I never feel complacent and I never assume that a character is safe simply because they’re important. She keeps the tension high and the action intense from the beginning through to the end, and just when I thought I might get a break — she’d raise the stakes again.

Some of the secondary characters in The Immortal Rules come front and center in The Eternity Cure, which was awesome. We get to spend a good chunk of time with Jackal, the vampire prince who we last saw staking Allie and throwing her out a window. He returns, dark and snarky as ever, and walks an impressively fine line between villain and reluctant hero. Like all the best villains, he is layered and complex, and is true to himself above all else.

Kanin is also back, and I love him just as much as I did in the first book. I am a sucker for the strong, noble, self-sacrificing type – provided they are not sappy and patronizing – and Kanin fills this role perfectly. He is unwavering in his morals and convictions, and they drive every action he makes, but he is also a man who has made many mistakes, and realizes they come with a price. I cannot say enough good things about his character. There should be more Kanins, both in books and in life.

Zeke and Allie both come into their own a bit in this book. In The Immortal Rules, so much of their relationship was hindered by secrecy. Now, they each know up front who the other is, and have to decide whether or not to come to terms with that. I enjoyed both of them, and appreciated their increased honesty, and the closeness that came from it. I also liked seeing Allie embrace her humanity a bit more, and seeing Zeke really examine his beliefs, instead of just accepting what his father believed. There was good growth from both of them.

As far as the plot, I think I’m becoming a bit immune to plot twists, because I watched everyone freak out about the twists in this book when it was released, and none of them really surprised me. BUT! That didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the book in the least – just because I suspect something is coming doesn’t mean I enjoy watching it unfold any less. So I can’t comment on how surprising or satisfying the twists are. What I can say is that the plotting is tight, the action is prevalent, and once you get to the twisty parts – she pulls no punches. NONE. AT ALL. I begin to wonder if she’s even heard of pulling punches.

The Eternity Cure is a solid follow-up to The Immortal Rules, filled with intense action, thoughtfully developed and varied characters, and break-neck pacing that will keep you turning pages well into the night. Just make sure to keep the light on, because here, there be monsters.

Hello readers! Sorry I vanished for a while there. I was deep in my revision cave, which is not — I think — nearly so dank and dark as other writers’ revision caves, but was still a marathon event where my computer chair molded to my body (or possibly the other way around) and I subsisted on frozen food and coffee and Cheetos. Dark times indeed. In case you’re wondering what it feels like to be in a revision cave, it’s basically this, but with more junk food:

The good news is I do have a loving (and exceedingly patient and understanding) husband, as well as amazing writer friends who totally get me. So they never really let me get to Oblio levels of isolation. (By the way, we have all seen The Point, yes? Because that movie is truly fabulous, and utterly unique and creative. I’ve loved it since forever.)

This will probably only get worse if/when I ever actually…you know…have a real deadline and not just one I made up (there was a Legit!Reason! for making it up, but even so, I made it up). But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

But for now I can say I’m done! I’ve revised my fantasy for the bajillionth time, and I think this one’s going to stick. And by “stick,” I mean I am not voluntarily going to do anything else to it unless someone in authority tells me to. I will no longer go in and tweak and finesse because I got an epiphany on the way to preschool and IT’S EXACTLY PERFECT. No. I am done. Even though immediately after sending it out to the aforementioned People In Authority, I also sent it to my husband, and he noticed an error on page one.

PAGE. FREAKIN’. ONE.

I told him not to tell me if he finds more, for the good of my sanity and our marriage.

Meanwhile, I have a New Shiny Idea I’m excited to jump on, and hey, maybe I’ll actually READ something that is a real book on real shelves in real stores that real people buy. That is a novel [*PUNALERT*] idea. And then I can blog about it! For YOU!

Speaking of blogging, I’m going to upgrade my posting timeline from “Seriously, did you die?” to “Is there any rhyme or reason to the frequency of your posts? Because it feels like no.”

Which means I will post about things, but I want to set the bar reaaaaal low in terms of how often you will read them. Because I love blogging, and I love reading, and I love blogging about reading. But the writing bug has attacked and will not let me go, like a Time Beetle only without all the destructive parallel world complications. But rest assured, when I do post, it will be a more exciting read than this one. I hope.

This is not what’s happened.

The truth is I’ve gotten busy. I’ve been revising my book (ARRRRRGH REVISING) and reading drafts for friends and occasionally putting on pants and leaving my house to interact with other humans.

What I have not been doing? Reading books that actually exist or are soon to exist, ie: filling my brain with content for this blog. Hence the great big NOTHING you’ve seen here the past couple weeks.

(Oh, I also saw Jurassic Park 3D. That movie HOLDS UP, people.)

So never fear. This isn’t so much a scheduled break as a lack of inspiration. I’ll pick it back up soon-ish. In the meantime, if you miss me, come say hi on Twitter.

(If I fall off Twitter…send help.)

I’ll let Liz take it from here!

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books.

Feel free to grab the Throwback Thursday button code from the sidebar to use in your posts.

Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing which books you choose to remember!

My Throwback this week is…

Dead Poets Society (1989) starring Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke

I’m cheating a bit, as this movie is not based on a book. But it’s chock full of references to Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, and others, and a huge part of it takes place in a high school poetry class. So I’d say it qualifies.

Plus, this is one of my top 5 favorite movies of all time, and I’ll take any and every excuse to talk about how much I love it.

Because it is amazing and moving and beautiful.

And inspiring.

And heartbreaking.

And empowering.

And…and I know I basically just used gifs instead of actually telling you what I love about this movie, which is lazy and I’m sorry, but now you’ll just have to go watch it to find out. Because I forgot what day it was and now only have 5 minutes to write a post before I have to leave.

Sorry. Planning and blogging FAIL on my part. Life has been busy.

This is a blog hop! Link up your Throwback Thursday post below!

I picked up Hopeless by Colleen Hoover for one reason, and one reason only. This blog post by Myra McEntire. Sometimes I just want a book to wreak havoc with my emotions, and from the looks of things, this book would fit the bill. I started it one night when I was in A Mood, and YUP. Havoc wreaked. Achievement unlocked.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…

That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.

Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn’t at all who he’s been claiming to be. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever.

My Thoughts

From the very beginning, Hopeless sucked me in. It was one of those “just one more chapter” books, where the pages seemed to be flying by and time appeared to stand still. Until I’d look at the clock and realize I meant to go to bed 2 hours ago.

It starts benign enough. There’s humor and fun characters, and the inevitable meet-cute of Holder and Sky. The romance builds simply and sweetly, with lots of raging hormones and “awww” moments. But even though the first half of the story is relatively light, there is a constant unease simmering just under the surface of the narrative. A feeling that although things seem to be going well, things are not quite right, and when Sky figures it out, it’s all going to come crashing down.

And then it comes crashing down.

Sky was a great character to spend the book with. She was funny and tough, secure and smart. Not your typical self-deprecating, clumsy heroine. And the fact that she was such a strong, confident character made it that much more devastating when, in the second half of the book, she becomes very broken.

Holder was a typical misunderstood-bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold, but there’s a reason that trope is so popular. It works. While part of me (the cynical part) rolled my eyes at Sky’s immediate and overwhelming “I’ve never felt this way about a boy” response to him, before she even knows him, the way their relationship develops gave me all the good heart flutters. And then the more I learned about Holder and his past, the more I appreciated him. (Also, eventually, Sky’s somewhat over-the-top initial reaction is explained, making me feel kinda bad I rolled my eyes.)

Now, here comes the part where I give you a warning. The back half of this book is not light reading. There are some very dark and serious issues present, including sexual abuse and suicide, and they are not glossed over. That, combined with the other mature content, makes me need to disclaim that while I loved this book, I would not recommend it for younger teen readers. It may be about high school students, but I’d categorize Hopeless as adult, as I believe that is its primary audience. It deals with some very disturbing topics, and while there are fabulous grin-inducing highs, there are also some horrific lows. So. Proceed with caution.

Hopeless is not for everyone. It may not be for you, and that’s totally okay. It’s a book about healing and surviving after something unimaginably awful. But for me personally, I thought this was a brutally honest, often heartbreaking, yet ultimately uplifting story, with strong nuanced characters and writing that kept me riveted from beginning to end.

Content guide: Contains profanity, sex, mentions of suicide, and sexual abuse, all involving children and teenagers. 

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books.

Feel free to grab the Throwback Thursday button code from the sidebar to use in your posts.

Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing which books you choose to remember!

My Throwback this week is…

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

In honor of the movie releasing this week (which I am totally seeing opening night), today I am featuring that other book by Stephenie Meyer which is not about sparklepires. Here’s the Goodreads synopsis:

Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact. Wanderer, the invading “soul” who has been given Melanie’s body, didn’t expect to find its former tenant refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

As Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of Jared, a human who still lives in hiding, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she’s never met. Reluctant allies, Wanderer and Melanie set off to search for the man they both love.

I’ll be honest – I really, really enjoyed this book. Say what you will about Stephenie Meyer and her writing (which, in my opinion, improves LEAPS AND BOUNDS between the Twilight Saga and The Host), but the woman knows how to keep the pages turning and the tension high. Yes, even when she’s writing about stalk-y sparklepires. But I like The Host so much more because it’s about ALIENS. And I love me a good alien story. Plus, while there is a love triangle in The Host - which is actually more of a love square – it’s different than in most books. The conflict is real and the solution is not obvious. HIGH FIVE for a love triangle where one of the choices is not infuriatingly stupid.

When I first read The Host - in about a day, because I couldn’t seem to stop reading it – the characters and the story stayed in my head for days after. I thought about them all the time, the choices they made, and what they would do next. To me, all technicalities aside, that’s the mark of a good story. If you think a clean alien romance might be up your alley but you’ve been putting this one off because it’s by That Twilight Lady – give it a shot. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Also, here is the movie trailer. WHO ELSE IS EXCITED? JUST ME? NO? OKAY GOOD.

This is a blog hop! Link up your Throwback Thursday post below!

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books.

Feel free to grab the Throwback Thursday button code from the sidebar to use in your posts.

Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing which books you choose to remember!

My Throwback this week is…

Stardust (2007) starring Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeifer, and Robert DeNiro
Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman

Because I am tired, here’s the Goodreads synopsis:

Hopelessly crossed in love, a boy of half-fairy parentage leaves his mundane Victorian-English village on a quest for a fallen star in the magical realm. The star proves to be an attractive woman with a hot temper, who plunges with our hero into adventures featuring witches, the lion and the unicorn, plotting elf-lords, ships that sail the sky, magical transformations, curses whose effects rebound, binding conditions with hidden loopholes and all the rest.

I’ll be honest – I haven’t read the book (YET), but I loved this movie. It’s sweet and inventive and beautiful. It’s fantasy at its best, and I hope you enjoy it.

This is a blog hop! Link your Throwback Thursday post below!

No, I’m not going to get specific on what all is happening with querying right now. Let’s just say I’ve gotten form rejections, and I’ve gotten requests, and I can now say for certain that when you hear that much of querying is sitting and waiting, it’s true.

This week (and maybe next), in an attempt to be proactive and give myself something to obsess over other than refreshing my email every 30 seconds, I’ve entered two contests.

The first is Pitch-Fest at WriteOnCon. My 200-word pitch will be critiqued by at least one agent, along with (hopefully) book bloggers, librarians, and authors. They’ll offer helpful feedback, and can request more material if they’re interested. I’m not allowed to comment on my thread while the Pitch-Fest is going on; I just have to sit back and watch the magic.

Which of course means that after I revised and polished my pitch, and even had other people look it over to be sure it was ready…I realized I deleted some rather important information. Originally, I introduced a character in the first paragraph whose actions are then developed in the last paragraph. But then I cut out his intro. So now he just pops up at the end, seemingly out of nowhere.

Oops.

Anyway, if you want to check out my pitch, glaring omission and all, you can view it here. And I can at least clarify here, for you lovely and confused folks, that Thomas is her neighbor and best friend. There. I feel better.

The second is Pitch Madness, where I email in a 35-word logline plus the first 250 words of my novel, to compete with a few hundred other people doing the exact same thing. I got word this morning that I made it into the second round, along with 126 other hopeful authors. Of these 127 entries, 60 will be picked by the judges to advance next week to Round 3, where agents will compete for a chance to take a closer look at these manuscripts.

Now, 60 out of 127 seems like pretty decent odds, but I don’t want to count my chickens. 67 fabulous pitches won’t make it through, and I could easily be one of them. However, it was nice validation that at the very least, my pitch was good enough to grab someone’s attention.

Many Pitch Madness participants are posting their entries on their blogs. Whether or not I make it to that final round, it’s been fun to hop around the Internet and see what kinds of books are being pitched. Lots of amazing ideas.

So I figured I might as well play along. Even if I don’t make it through, opening myself up to feedback is one of the best ways to get better, right? Right.

So here’s my Pitch Madness entry, for those of you who are interested! I hope you like it (and if not…be gentle. Honest. But gentle).

There you have it, world! An update on my writing journey. In the meantime, I’m writing another novel that I love just as much as the fantasy, but is toooootally different. Maybe I’ll let you know more about it someday after it’s finished. It’s a fun time.