{Review & Giveaway} The Emblazoned Red @

Once, in another world—a dark world, the world of Faetta—there lived paladins and pirates, tyrants and scallywags, vampires and the undead. In this world a revolution is brewing. The royalty of Sieunes are in chains, and those priests and paladins who follow the holy word of the gods are under attack. In the west, the kingdom of Kellerhald receives the fleeing priests in their temples of the paladins of Silvius, god of the Sky.

Here, a young woman has just passed her tests to become a paladin. A pirate crew raids along the Azez Sea. An undead creature, wielding great power, roams the graveyard of Yetta. And a lost soul, crying out from beyond the veil, seeks out a pure hearted warrior to hear its plea.

Amid the turmoil of the revolution, Ilka’s mettle is tested. Rescued by pirates, she ends up with an unlikely ally: the pirate captain himself. The newly trained paladin finds herself collaborating with the undead, working with a vampire, and worst of all, longing for revenge against the man who has ignited the revolution in Sieunes: Francois Mond.

Death of an Innocent. Rise of a Paladin.

Dawn McCullough White is known for her strong female protagonists, and gritty dark fantasy.

Ms. McCullough-White has lived the majority of her life in and around Rochester, NY with a brief stint in Tucson, AZ. She is pursuing a degree in psychology at R.I.T. Dawn is a history buff and was a member of the Society of Creative Anachronism for years, active as a heavy weapons fighter. She currently resides with her husband and son in a quaint neighborhood next to an old cemetery.

This book was very odd.  As a series it wraps up the end a little too nicely.  It is a combo of many genres which was a great blend.  The other issue I had was the age difference (she is 18 he is 41) that was a really big turn off for me.  But, if you can get past those issues it really is a pretty good book.  So enter to win a signed print copy!


"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

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{Guest Post} Chaos @coneilYA

My name is Maggie Raynard. After sixteen years being just plain me, suddenly I can kill people when I lose my temper. Turns out I'm a semi-god, descended from Aphrodite. Sounds cool in theory, but when I accidentally put my ex-boyfriend in a coma, things go downhill pretty fast.

Now some new guy named Mac Finnegan has made it his mission in life to continually piss me off. I'm stuck learning how to use my new powers while also dealing with regular high school problems, and with this---annoying and super-hot---guy all up in my business, I'm about to flip out.

But it gets worse. I just learned there's this council for semis that wants me dead. They think I'm bad to the bone and when my ex suddenly dies, it's like everyone is determined to take me out. Mac might turn out to be my only salvation, but he's got secrets of his own---that may just kill us both.

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Exclusive Excerpt

I was done with guys.

Not in that fake, I-say-that-but-deep-down-I-really-want-a-boyfriend kind of way, but in, like, the seriously-I'd-rather-eat-maggoty-cheese kind of way. No relationships. Not for me. Not now and maybe not ever. Who I am…what I am, and what I’m capable of? Everyone’s better off this way.

"I have to stop at my locker real quick," I said, veering to the right and cutting through the crush of kids heading straight like wildebeests to a watering hole. Libby followed and then stood by me as I fiddled with the lock.

"What's that?" She pointed to a white piece of paper sticking out half an inch from one of the slots in the olive metal door.

I tugged the padlock open and flicked the catch with my thumb. "Dunno." Maybe Bink had left me another note. Bink was my neighbor, bud, and—most days—my ride home. Last time I’d found a note in my locker, it was when his cell phone died and he needed to bail early. I seriously hoped this wasn’t a repeat performance.

I mentally ran down the list of people I could bug for a ride and came up empty. Libby always had to stay after for some activity or another, and I only really had two other people I could call "friends" and neither lived near me. I wrinkled my nose in anticipation of the dirty-sneakers-meets-day-old-bologna smell of a bus filled with kids who'd had last-period gym and opted not to change clothes. 

With a sigh, I pulled open the door and the white rectangle floated to the floor.

Libby bent to grab it and read it out loud. "'Dear Sad and Lonely…'" She trailed off and went quiet 

for a few seconds until her peachy complexion went hot pink, and then she gasped. "Oh my God. 

Holy… Oh, Mags, you are so not going to like this."

I snatched the paper from her, trying to ward off the growing pit in my gut.

Dear Sad and Lonely,

Since I can almost guarantee She is about to give you some seriously shite advice like she does every week, let me be the voice of reason. Your boyfriend is just like most high school guys. Cut him some slack and, even better, why not offer to learn how to play some of the games he likes? He'd probably appreciate the effort and might even take you somewhere nice after. If that doesn't work, sit him down and let him know how you're feeling so he can tell you what's going on with him. Could be that constantly calling the things he likes stupid isn't the best way to get what you want in this situation, yeah? In any case, don't let the ramblings of some bitter emo chick who's probably never had a boyfriend ruin your relationship.

Hope it helps,

He

The shock was too thick to let the anger in right away, but as stunned as I was, I knew exactly who was behind this. There was only one person in the whole school who would use the word “shite.”

Mac Finnegan.

Opinionated, annoying, hot—did I mention annoying?—Mac Finnegan, who had barely given me the time of day since he'd come to Crestwood High a couple months ago. Mac Finnegan, who thought he was soooo cool with his Irish accent and his mocking smile. Mac Finnegan, who inexplicably made me want to lick him like an ice cream cone and then immediately rinse my mouth out with acid.

How had he discovered my secret? Only Bink and Libby knew I was the girl behind “That's What She Said,” and I would have bet everything I owned that neither of them would have ratted me out.

Didn’t matter, though. One way or another, he knew. Even worse, he'd chosen to taunt me with it. Bitter emo chick who’s probably never had a boyfriend, indeed. I had a boyfriend once and it hadn’t ended well for either of us. I was in no rush to repeat the experience. Besides, what did this Irish asshat care?

Anger tightened my chest. I could feel the power rising in me, clawing to get out, roaring to be heard. The hair on my arms stood on end as I tried to breathe through it, to let the fury dissipate and flow out of my pores in harmless pings of energy, but it was no use. I pressed a hand to my locker and opened up the tiniest of escape valves, the spout of the teakettle, whistling off a stream of steam. The cheap metal instantly heated against my skin, the door buckling and warping on the spot just beneath my fingertips.

"Uh, Mags—" Libby whispered urgently, but a male voice cut her off.

"How's it going there, Libby? Maggie."

I turned around, still trying to catch my breath, and there he was, strolling by, a grin splitting his sinfully beautiful face.

Mac Finnegan, who had decided that being the new kid wasn't bad enough, so he had to actively go out of his way to make enemies. Mac Finnegan, who wanted to turn my world upside down rather than minding his own business. Mac Finnegan, who didn't know the meaning of live and let live.

Mac Finnegan, who clearly had no idea who he was fucking with.

 

About Christine:

Christine O’Neil is one half of the happiest couple in the world. She and her handsome hubby currently reside in Pennsylvania with a four-pack of teenage boys and their two dogs, Gimli and Pug. If she gets time off from her duties as maid, chef, chauffeur, or therapist, she can be found reading just about anything she can get her hands on, from Young Adult novels to books on poker theory. She doesn’t like root beer, clowns or bugs (except ladybugs, on account of their cute outfits), but lurrves chocolate, going to the movies, the New York Giants and playing Texas Hold ‘Em. Writing is her passion, but if she had to pick another occupation, she would be a pirate…or, like, a ninja maybe. She loves writing fun and adventure-filled romance stories, but also hopes to one day publish something her dad can read without wanting to dig his eyes out with rusty spoons. Christine loves to hear from readers, so please feel free to get in touch with her via the Contact Page. Christine also writes adult romance under the name Christine Bell.

Website/Twitter/ Goodreads


Follow the Tour

Tour Schedule:

Week 1

9/2/2013- Crossroad Reviews- Guest Post

9/3/2013- The Book Belles- Review

9/4/2013- Manga Maniac Cafe- Interview

9/5/2013- A Backwards Story- Guest Post

9/6/2013- Coffee, Books and Me- Interview

Week 2

9/9/2013- Books Are Magic- Review

9/10/2013- K-Books- Guest Post

9/11/2013- Curling Up With A Good Book- Review

9/12/2013- Fantasy Book Addict- Interview

9/13/2013- Ticket to Anywhere          - Review

  

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Guest Post! 

Thanks for having me today to celebrate the release of Chaos! 
I thought I could talk a little about what makes me fall in love with a fictional character. Stick around until the end and tell me what you think, because I’m doing an awesome contest too!

 

So when I think of all the things that make me fall in love with a book, regardless of genre, it’s the characters. If I fall in love with the characters, nothing else matters. I’ll follow them down a mine shaft, or to another planet or to Regency era London, or to a dystopian future. Because I’m invested. I care about them and their story. I think the best authors make us do that through voice. I’m a sucker for humor, but if I really think on it, that’sjust a small piece of it. More important? Things that make them relatable. Do they have a little stutter when they get stressed out? Will they only eat if none of their food touches on the plate? Do they have a weird ritual they do before they leave for school every morning, like jumping off the front step and hitting the wind chimes with their fingertips? People are weird. We do weird stuff all the time. If characters aren’t a little weird too, readers can’t relate.

 

Another thing I think that makes me love a character is if they are vulnerable and flawed in some way. If not, it’s hard toconnect. Readers want to see themselves on the page, and know that their hero or heroine has been through strife, is a wide open nerve for the author to poke and prod. Sounds sadistic, right? But without it, who cares. I mean, that’s the investment, right? Without falling into a crevice due to hiking-hubris, there IS no sawing off of the proverbial arm. And without the sawing off of the proverbial arm, where is the “HELL YEAH!” The fist pump along with that good, juicy feeling payoff of seeing someoneclimb out of that hole, overcoming the odds? Where’s our Rocky or our Big Mike from the Blind Side? In order to celebrate the victory, we have to witness the suffering too, and that requires our protagonist to be vulnerable.

 

This holds true in all stories, but for paranormal tales even more because they need to have both emotional AND physical vulnerability in order for readers to really connect. If they are COMPLETELY immortal, or had no physical “kryptonite” so to speak, the nervous tension of “Will he make it this time?” or “How will she get out of THIS one?” would be gone. Whatwould happen if Spider Man didn’t love Gwen (or Uncle Ben orMary Jane, depending on which version)? What would the super-villains use to manipulate him? What if Superman’s powers weren’t drained by kryptonite? What if the Hulk COULD control his anger? BORing. When I was writing Maggie and Mac for Chaos, I knew that not only had to beflawed, vulnerable and wide open for a world of hurt, they also had to be a that way for each other. Mac is one of the strongest semi-gods in the world, but his care for Maggie makes him vulnerable, and vice versa. Otherwise, the story doesn’t work.

 

I’m weird. And I’m vulnerable. And I’m flawed. So, like, whenever I draw a picture or doodle of something like a snowman, I always draw two so that when I close the notebook, there’s not just the one left there all lonely. Frigging weird, right?  And my kryptonite would be maggots. Show me maggots and I will tell you ANYTHING you want to know. As for flaws, I have a ton. I think my least favorite one is that I love to argue. Seriously, even if I don’t believe what I’m arguing about, I STILL have the intense urge to debate about it. It’s not cute, y’all.

 

So what about you, blog readers? What makes you weird? Flawed? Vulnerable? (Asking that last one for a friend. Not going to use this information to take over the human race one by one and use your planet as a breeding ground my race of super-aliens *shity eyes*).

{Review + Giveaway} The Girl of Fire and Thorns @RaeCarson @EpicReads

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.
Elisa is the chosen one. 

But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can't see how she ever will. 

Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.

And he's not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people's savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.  Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young.  Most of the chosen do

About the Author

Rae Carson is the author of The Girl of Fire and Thorns and The Crown of Embers. Locus, the premier magazine for science fiction and fantasy, proclaimed, "Carson joins the ranks of writers like Kristin Cashore, Megan Whalen Turner, and Tamora Pierce as one of YA's best writers of high fantasy." The Girl of Fire and Thorns was a finalist for the Morris YA Debut Award, and one of ALA's Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults. Rae Carson has dabbled in many things, from teaching to corporate sales to customer service, before becoming a full-time writer. She lives with her family in Columbus, Ohio. You can follow her on Twitter.

I had purchased this book two years ago and completely forgot about it. Then book two came out at discount so I stabbed that one to. When I received book three for review and didn't get to it time it sucked. But then epic reads had the author on and I decided it was time to read it. And OMG! I wish I would have gotten to this sooner. This book was so good. But here are some steps if you are going to read it.

1. Have something sweet on hand for the beginning as they are consistently talking about food.

2. DO NOT read this book on an empty stomach! IT WILL NOT end well!

This book had so many twists and turns and at first I thought it was silly. A girl with a jewel in her belly. Reminded me of those wish trolls lol. But at the middle you forget and my the end you don know why you conspired the two. This was such a beautiful book with amazing characters. And two very big OMG MOMENTS!!! For those who haven't read this series. Make sure you have all three books on hand!
"*I received a copy of this book for free to review, this in no way influenced my review, all opinions are 100% honest and my own."

Comment below to win a copy of book two!   The Crown of Embers from amazon which is sale right now for $1.99!!!

{Hop} September is for Sequels

CLICK HERE FOR THE LINKY LIST

Ok for this one I thought I would do something VERY nice!!  I have two copies of most of the House of Night Books!  So I thought I would give the extras away!  So enter to win the currently released books and maybe ill even giveaway the newest one that isn't even out yet! 

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{Review} The 5th Wave @RickYancey

This review was borrowed from Goodreads. 
"...bastardized sci-fi for the Twilight crowd..."

Well this is awkward. Everything about The 5th Wave - an award winning male young adult author, a high octane alien invasion plot, the comparisons to Ender’s Game and The Passage - made it seem like it’d exactly my kind of book. But now that I’ve finished, I’m just so pissed with the whole thing I have nothing nice to say and really just want to punch something, and in fact, I dislike The 5th Wave so much I’ve somehow written not one butthree angry rants - yeah, be warned, this is going to be brutal(ly honest).

Rant Number 1: The Alien Invasion is Beyond Disappointing
The 5th Wave is not Ender’s Game. The 5th Wave is not The Passage. The 5th Wave shouldn’t even qualify as science fiction unless it’s being mentioned in the same breath as Jennifer Armentrout’s Lux series (even Stephenie Meyer’s The Host is too good for this comparison). 

Why? Because there’s just nothing here but a collection of alien invasion tropes leading to an actual plot that’s all over the place, part cringe worthy young adult ‘romance’ (which I never would have expected from a male author... but that’s the topic of the next rant), part bizarre military training sequence (hence the unfounded comparisons to Ender’s Game... see rant number three), all leading to a nonsensical alien conspiracy by a group of ‘Others’, who, if they’d really been studying us and planning our demise for as long as they claim, rather than the harebrained scheme they’ve concocted to ‘break’ humanity, should’ve just taken their cues from this awesome game:



In fact, I’ve seen my share of memorable alien invasion plots.Independence Day. Animorphs. V. Between Falling Skies, War of the Worlds, and Invasion America, Steven Spielberg has even done it three times. So at this point, count me unsurprised by the basic premise of The 5th Wave, but even so I still wasn’t prepared for how derivative this book actually is *cough*infestation with obvious red herring*cough*.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly looking for new and original - I just wanted something that, I don’t know, isn’t a clichefest? Any serious, well done treatment would have sufficed... and yet, I’m wracking my head trying to think of anything else remotely this bad... and I just can’t. There just isn’t anything interesting about The 5th Wave that made me want to invest in the story - it’s great that Rick Yancey seems to have latched on to Stephen Hawking’s idea that if aliens ever visited, we’d all be like the Native Americans during the colonial era, but the Waves themselves are just so generic compared to every other (imagined) alien attack that Cassie Sullivan’s descriptions of the ‘Other’’s invasion come across more like the melodramatic whining of someone too clueless and naive to appreciate the power of an alien invasion than the gritty recollections of a hardened survivor who’s experienced the horrors of the attacks firsthand. 

Besides, there are only so many ways of describing how to squash a bug. Orbital bombardment. Biological warfare. A Fifth Column. Not only is The 5th Wave unoriginal, but it’s excessive. I got it, humanity’s beaten, there’s really no need for all of Cassie’s theatrics. Sure, she can pretend to be such a big expert on alien invasions, tell me how unprepared we are, how many people the ‘Others’ have killed, but she’s so keen on sounding like the big expert she thinks she is she ends up being just so repetitive and ridiculously genre unsavvy. They can kill us? Yeah I know... I've seen them blow up the White House. Seriously, mope around too much bitching about it like she does, and it becomes a case of been there, done that, got boring, seriously stop telling me how terrible it is when I can imagine hundreds of worse scenarios. Face huggers anyone?

Anyway, Earth being invaded by hostile, advanced aliens isn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. But not only is The 5th Wave completely derivative of the many, many alien invasion plots of years past, it just has a terrible protagonist in Cassie Sullivan who forcefully shoves the same old regurgitated crap down my throat in the most inane way possible. Ugh.

Rant Number 2: The ‘Romance’ is Beyond Terrible

"That’s my big problem. That’s it! Before the Arrival, guys like Evan Walker never looked twice at me, much less shot wild game for me and washed my hair. They never grabbed me by the back of the neck like the airbrushed model on his mother’s paperback, abs a-clenching, pecs a-popping. My eyes have never been looked deeply into, or my chin raised to bring my lips within an inch of theirs."

That, if you couldn’t tell, is an actual quote from the book. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything as romantically challenged as The 5th Wave, and this is including Twilight here (did I just compare Twilight favorably to another book?!!). 

Basically, I really really REALLY didn’t like Cassie Sullivan as a character (again, and for completely different reasons than from rant number one). For one, I’d be seriously concerned for any girl who responds to an impending alien invasion like this: 

It’s the end of the world! OMG Ben Parish is hot! 

WTF? And as if that wasn’t enough, Ben Parish isn’t even the love interest. The real love interest is a poor guy named Evan Walker, who may or may not be one of them. Who, I’m not kidding, tries to kill Cassie before growing a conscience and falling in love with her. And Cassie, of course, is the girl who’s never been in a relationship before, so she immediately loses all sense of self preservation and melts into his warm brown eyes and dimple. What is this? The Host? Did Stephenie Meyer write this?

And if that wasn’t bad enough, even if I weren’t inwardly cringing every time Cassie and Evan appear together, Rick Yancey really should be banned from writing female points of view. This, again, is an actual Cassie quote:

Time for the angrily-storming-out-of-the-room part of the argument, while the guy folds his arms over his manly chest and pouts.

WTF? Should I believe what I think Yancey’s saying about what girls think of guys?

In fact, I would be laughing at how bad Cassie’s point of view is if I weren’t still smarting over the insipid alien invasion plot that made me want to fling my copy of the book across the room (not that I can, don’t want to pay for repairs to the drywall). Double ugh.

Rant Number 3: The Comparisons to the Sci-fi Classics are Completely Unfounded
The days when alien invasion plots could stand solely on the invasion ended right around the time of H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds. Somebody, unfortunately, didn’t get the memo. Since then, alien invasions have been pushing the boundaries of speculative fiction by exploring the paranoia surrounding sleeper agents (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), adult authority and its limits (Ender’s Game), and discovering the truth in the face of a complex government cover-up (The X Files), but although The 5th Wave borrows elements from all of these other alien invasion plots, I can’t for the life of me point to one alien invasion theme that this book does well. Evan being a human-alien hybrid struggling to reconcile his alien soul with his humanity? Shallow even in comparison to The Host. The conspiracy surrounding the ‘Other’’s infiltration of the US military? So transparent I wouldn’t even call it a conspiracy. Ben’s military training to take out the infested? Is that a joke? They even killed (an expendable character named) Kenny! Cassie’s struggle to survive the Waves, eventually learning to become a tougher person? Ok, that one’s done well, I’ll admit, until she runs into Evan and becomes a quivering mess of a character. Then, yuck! 

Look, I’m not against borrowing plot elements from other sources. But when those elements mean something, when there’s a theme behind them, I don’t want to see a shallow treatment that does neither the source nor the adaptation any favors. And for The 5th Wave, that’s unfortunately the case. Triple ugh.

Basically, The 5th Wave is, in every way, an embarrassment to science fiction. Rick Yancey tried to work too many different concepts into this book, jumping all over the place, that the end result is not one of them is done well. I’m muy disappointed.