Cover Reveal & Giveaway! This Raging Light by Estelle Laure

http://www.rockstarbooktours.com

I am so excited that THIS RAGING LIGHT by Estelle Laure releases today and that I get to share the news!
If you haven’t yet heard about this wonderful book by Author Estelle Laure, be sure to check out all the details below.
This blitz also includes a giveaway for a finished copy of the book and a bottle of nail polish that matches the cover courtesy of Estelle, HMH, and Rockstar Book Tours. So if you’d like a chance to win, enter in the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post. Good luck and enjoy!

About The Book:

Title: THIS RAGING LIGHT
Author: Estelle Laure
Release Date: December 22nd, 2015
Pages: 288
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Formats: Hardcover, eBook, audiobook
Find It: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks

"A funny, poetic, big-hearted reminder that life can—and will—take us all by surprise.” —Jennifer E. Smith, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

Can the best thing happen at the worst time?

Her dad went crazy. Her mom left town. She has bills to pay and a little sister to look after. Now is not the time for level-headed seventeen-year-old Lucille to fall in love. But love—messy, inconvenient love—is what she’s about to experience when she falls for Digby Jones, her best friend’s brother. With blazing longing that builds to a fever pitch, Estelle Laure’s soulful debut will keep readers hooked and hoping until the very last page.

Exclusive Excerpt:

When Wrenny and I roll up the hill to Eden’s house in Mom’s ancient Corolla, Digby and his dad, John, are outside playing basketball, and I want to get in the house as fast as possible,
because otherwise I might be trapped here all day, staring. I get a little twinge of something seeing a dad and his kid playing ball like dads and kids are supposed to. That’s a real
thing, and my hand wants to cover Wren’s face so she can’t see all that she is missing.
Which reminds me. “Wren.”
“Yeah?” She’s wiping at her shirt, reading a book on her lap, and she’s a little bit filthy, her hair greasy and knotty in spite of my efforts this morning. At some point the braids came out, and she’s reverted to wild.
“You know how Mom hasn’t been around lately?”
She stops. Tightens. “Yeah,” she says.
“Well, we don’t want anyone to know about that, okay?
Even Janie and Eden and Digby and John.”
“But Mom’s on vacation. She’s getting her head together. She’s coming back.”
“Okay, yes,” I say, “but still. We don’t want to tell anyone, because they might not understand that. They might get the wrong idea.”
“Like that she left us permanently?” There is so much more going on inside that Wrenny-head than I can ever know.
“Maybe, or at least for longer than she was supposed to.” I reach for the handle to the door because I can’t look at her. “Someone might think that.”
“She didn’t, though,” she says. “She’s Mom.”
“Of course she didn’t.” Lie.
“So who cares what anyone thinks?”
“Wren, just don’t, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Some things are private.” I open the door, then lean back across and wipe uselessly at her shirt with my thumb. “Like Mom being on vacation. So, okay?”
“I said okay, okay?” She gets out and waits, stares at me like I’m the most aggravating person on earth. “Hey, Lu?”
“Yeah?” I say, bracing myself for what’s next.
“Your mama’s so fat, she left the house in high heels and came back in flip-flops.”
I would tell her that I hate her new obsession with fat jokes, but I’m not in the mood for any dawdling, so I half laugh and get moving. I want to get inside and quick because there’s also the other thing. And by “other” I mean what makes me sweat just standing here. And by “thing” I mean Digby, who I have known since I was seven but who lately makes a fumbling moronic moron out of me, a full-on halfwit. Ask me my name when I’m in his presence and I’m not likely to be able to tell you. I’d probably just say, “Lllll . . . lllllllu . . .” and you’d have to catch the drool running down my chin.
I know. It’s not at all attractive.
But really. Tall, sweaty, and not wearing a shirt, so the muscles are all right there for the watching. He doesn’t exactly glisten, on account of the fact that he’s whiter than white, that he tans by getting freckles so he’s covered in them now after a whole summer outside. But seeing his hair all plastered to his forehead, his body so long and lean, looping around his dad to get the ball into the hoop, I want to fall out of the car and onto my knees in the driveway, say Lord have mercy, hallelujah, write sonnets and paint him, and worship that one little curve where his neck meets his shoulder that is just so, so perfect.
He is beautiful.
Which is why when he says hi as I pass him, I barely raise a pinky in response. There are two main problems here, aside from the fact that he is Eden’s twin and that’s all kinds of weird.
One, he’s had the same girlfriend since the dawn of time. They’re pinned, she wears his jacket, their marriage certificate is practically already signed. Angels bless their freakin’ union. And two, if I ever did get a chance with him, like if he ever kissed me or something, I would die of implosion. I know I sound like a twelve-year-old mooning over some celebrity, and not the extremely self-possessed woman-tobe that I actually am, but something about him makes me lose my mind. Something about the way he moves, about his himness — it shatters me all the way down. So I hope he never does kiss me. That would be nothing but a disaster. No one needs to see me fall apart like that. Least of all him.
Actually, maybe least of all me.



About Estelle: 

Estelle Laure is a Vonnegut worshiper who believes in love and magic and the power of facing hard truths. She has a BA in Theater Arts from New Mexico State University and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and thinks everyone should have to wait tables or work in a kitchen at least once in their lives. She lives in Taos, New Mexico with her children.

Website | Twitter |Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram




Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a hardcover of THIS RAGING LIGHT and a bottle of Essie Nail Polish that matched the book cover. US Only.
Ends on December 31st at Midnight EST!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Until next time,

Jenell

After the Hype: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Hi all,

After the Hype is a new series that I'm wanting to do. Here I would review books that have gotten a lot of hype, but after some or all of that hype has died down.The first book I've chosen for this series is Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.

This one is going to be short, and to the point. Disclaimer: I did not finishing this book, but I made it a little over halfway. I feel like that's enough to have an opinion. I just did not like this book at all. The story felt forced around the pictures. Not natural at all. There was nothing exciting about the book, nothing that drew me in and I got past the halfway point. I didn't sympathize with the main character, Jacob. There was no emotional connection to any of the characters. The pacing is slow and tedious. I did enjoy the very beginning of the book, where Jacob is describing the job that he hates and his descriptions of his friend. But it really went down hill after that. I wanted to like this book, but it just isn't for me.

I gave this book 1 out of 5 stars.

If you've read this series, what did you think of it? Let me know in the comments

Until next time,

Jenell

Q&A with David Litwack, author of The Children of Darkness

Hi all!

In honor of David Litwack's new book tour for his book, The Children of Darkness, here is a Q&A. Enjoy!

Do you have any hints or tips for aspiring writers?

I take to heart the words of Justice Louis Brandeis: “There are no good writers, only good rewriters.” If you want to become a better writer, read lots and rewrite until no unnecessary word remains.

Assess every word, phrase, sentence, paragraph and scene objectively. Remove what’s not necessary, even if you love it. I have a favorite quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery (author of that gem of a novel, The Little Prince): “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Polish each and every word until all that’s left sparkles.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Ideas are everywhere. The secret is not to discover ideas but to be open to them. When I’m in a solid writing routine, it seems everything I encounter offers a new idea. Of course, I don’t use all of them, but they get the creative juices going.

I wrote a blog post on this titled “Ideas are everywhere.” You can check it out here.

What was the most important thing you learned at school?

Far and away the most important is the love of reading. I had a wonderful, but eccentric English teacher in high school. On the first day of class, he informed us we were all failing. The only way to improve our grade was to read a book and write a book report to prove we’d read it. We’d improve one grade per book. Since that school had monthly report cards, that meant to get an ‘A’, you had to read four books a month. Oh, and one more important point. He provided us with a reading list of the best books imaginable—The Complete works of Sherlock Holmes, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Saga of Andy Burnett (I wanted to be a mountain man until I was fifteen),The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I’ve been reading ever since.

Do you plot your books completely before hand or do you let your imagination flow whilst in the writing process?

I usually conceive of a new book as a series of images and scenes, daydreaming about them while I finish work on the prior novel. I maintain a notes file for the new novel and do a rough draft of these scenes—a  very rough draft, what some people call "scaffolding" or “riff writing” like improvisation in jazz. The file can get pretty chaotic. Every now and then I make a feeble attempt to organize it (when I’m finishing up a novel, I try to avoid distractions and stay focused on getting it out to the publisher). By the time I’m ready to start the new novel, I usually have about 20,000 words of loosely connected prose—20-25% of the eventual novel but probably 80% of its essence. I take a couple of months to read, edit and organize that file into a dense plot outline. Then I start a new file from scratch, cutting and pasting prose as appropriate.

It’s a messy process in the early going, but unlike those who start with a more organized outline, I need that amount of writing to get to know the characters and live in the story.

How long did it take to get from the ideas stage of the Seekers series, to the publication of all three books?

The Seeker series started out as a standalone novel called There Comes a Prophet. The initial idea came to me about eight years ago, and it was published in 2011. After producing two other novels, I decided at the urging of readers to go back and turn this standalone dystopian story into a trilogy. Prophet became The Children of Darkness(with a changed title, cover and publisher) and I’ve just published the second book, The Stuff of Stars. I’m hard at work on the third and final offering, to be called The Light of Reason.

Did you suffer from writer's block at any stage? How did you overcome it?

I sometimes think writer’s block is just another way of saying that writing a novel is really hard. I try to keep writing, even if I think it’s going poorly. Then I see how it looks the next day. I remind myself that I can always revise or just throw it away. Nothing’s worse than staring at a blank page.

Long walks are another good way to get the creative juices going. Whatever the case, I try to avoid just sitting there and staring at the screen. Write, read or go for a walk.

How did you come up with the name(s) for your lead character(s)?

Names matter, especially for a SciFi/Fantasy writer building new worlds. The names need to be consistent and reflect that culture. For the Seekers trilogy, where the people have been forcibly returned to something like our 15th century, I found the passenger manifest for the Mayflower, and borrowed names, mixing up first and last names to get ones like Nathaniel Rush or Thomas Bradford. All except for Orah. I wanted her to be different, a rebellious throwback to an earlier time. So rather than picking from the Anglo-Saxon, I chose a name with Hebrew roots. As an added subtlety, the name Orah means light.

Eve by WM Paul Young: A Review

Hi all,

I recently read Eve by WM Paul Young. I wasn't sure what this book was about going into it. I read it solely because of the cover and a I read a sentence or two of the synopsis. The story was pretty good. I found the beginning part of this book annoying and confusing. I wasn't sure what, exactly, was going on. I almost DNF'd it, but decided to persevere because I felt like it had potential to be a great story. I also felt like this book was kind of preachy. I'm not a religious person, and often squirm when I feel like I'm being preached to (no matter what religion). It seemed to back off a little as the story went on, but it was a continuous thing throughout. Though that shouldn't be surprising, given that this book involves the story of Adam and Eve. Or maybe I just got more used to it as the story progressed. I don't know. The way the author wrote it, though, was very interesting. It definitely was different.

I had a hard time connecting to the main character Lilly, though. She is a 15 year old girl who has been through some bad things in her life. But I couldn't emotionally connect to her at all, except for a little towards the end. As the reader, you are supposed to believe that she really feels the negative things she keeps saying about herself, but I just didn't. It almost seemed like the author had her repeat these things over and over to make up for the fact that the emotional impact of those feelings wasn't there.

That being said, I did end up liking John, the man who finds her. I also thought the way the story was told was interesting and so was the concept. I would imagine that someone who is a church going Christian would really enjoy this book. Unless you don't like how you interpret the Bible to be challenged. I found a lot of what the story talked about and mentioned really interesting. I've not studied the Bible much, so I don't know if the story that Young told about the Genesis story is something that most people accept or not. But the way it was presented made me think not. If nothing else, I certainly understand the Genesis story a little better now because of it. 

Ultimately, I really liked the way the story was presented, even if I couldn't connect to Lilly and found the preachy aspect a little annoying. This book made me think about the Creation story in ways I never had before and I really like that. Just those two things about the book are why I knocked my rating to 3.5 stars. Really a good read over all.

Have you read Eve, or any book by Young? If so, let me know what you thought in the comments!

I look forward to hearing from you!

Until next time,

Jenell

Tuesday Talks: Does Book Hype Affect Your Reading?

Hi all! 

So, it's been awhile. I apologize greatly for that. I started to to NaNoWriMo, but stuff happened and I made the decision to stop doing it. I was feeling overwhelmed with everything that was going on, so in order to ease that feeling, I stopped writing. But I'm back now! :)

Today I have a Tuesday Talks discussion for you. This week's topic is: does book hype affect your reading?

For me, that answer is most definitely. I'm very much a mood reader. If I hear lots of hype about a book that already seems like an interesting book, I'm more likely to read that book and read it before any of the other books I may have been planning to read.

It's interesting that this is the topic this week. Lately I have been thinking about this. Hype gets me excited about a book, but hearing negative things about a book makes me hesitate to read it. Which got me wondering. How much does hype ultimately effect my reading experience and my ratings? I honestly don't know the answer to that question.

I'd like to think that book hype doesn't affect me other than my decision to read a book or not. I suspect, though, that it may not stop there. If my expectations are of the book are high, I feel like I am more likely to enjoy it. Unless it's just plain horrible. On the other side of that, I feel like when I hear negative things, maybe I approach the book with a more closed off attitude.

Since realizing this recently, I've tried to stay away from reading reviews on books. The only time I will is if I'm not sure if I want to read it or spend the money to buy it. If I'm looking for a new author, then I will also seek out reviews to see if the author might be one that I enjoy. I especially love BookTube for this purpose. 

Long answer long. Yes, hype affects my reading. What about you? Does hype affect your reading? If so, how? Let me know in the comments! :)

Until next time,

Jenell

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

(Amazon affiliate link)

I have to write this while everything is still fresh. I'm going to tell you right here, right now that this book is absolutely freaking amazing! It blew my mind. So much so that I'm having a hard time forming coherent sentences. I've sat here already for at least five minutes trying to think of something besides, "OMG" and saying "It's so amazing!" again. This is a review. I have to be somewhat intelligent, right?

I had received a digital ARC of Illuminae from Netgalley a few weeks before the publish date. I tried to read it on my e-reader, but the format didn't translate well and I had a really hard time reading it. This was because of the app that I had to use to read the ARC, which was DRM protected. The app did not do well with the format of the book. PLEASE don't let this stop you from buying this digitally if that's how you want to read it. I didn't get a Kindle copy, or similar format. I think this format would be great on Kindle or Nook, etc.

I probably read about 40 to 50 pages into the ARC before I just decided to buy the book when it came out and write a review then. I really liked what I did read, so I was so very excited to get the book. I'm so glad I bought it too. The cover art is beautiful. The dust jacket is this weirdly semi-transparent plastic that allows you to see peeks of what is underneath it. Then, on the actual book itself, is a bunch of writing. All over the place. Excerpts, sort of, from the book. But nothing spoiler-y.

You open it up and are greeted with a beautiful black and white image of space. Take time to admire these gorgeous details. Seriously. Then jump right into the story. If you like sci-fi and like YA, you will love this. Going into this, I honestly didn't really know what it was about. It's kind of a survival story, with romance and a sickness that causes people to become something that I find so much more terrifying than the idea of zombies.

There were at least three different incidents when I said to myself (or maybe out loud, I can't remember), "No way!" My lovely brain always seem to try to think of every possible outcome to a story. So many times I am not surprised by endings or plot twists. I hate that sometimes because I love surprises! However, I never hold it against a book if I predict something that happens in the story. Unless it is horribly obvious. This book though. Oh man! It got me good.

I don't want to go into too much detail on what the book is about. I don't know about you, but I like to go into books blind, or mostly blind. Illuminae's two main characters are Ezra and Kady. They used to date, but broke up the day the BeiTech attacks. Beitech is a rival corporation to the corporation that is mining on the planet they live on. They escape with the aid of 3 ships in the area. One ship from BeiTech is left to pursue them. Two of the three ships that are fleeing are not equipped for battle and the one that is has extensive damage from the fight. The artificial intelligence on board the damaged ship, AIDAN, was also damaged during the fight, which creates other problems.  The rest of the story is trying to survive by fleeing the warship and also trying to survive the illness.

Illuminae can be brutal and intense, which were not things I was expecting. Yet, it also gave me chills in some parts. It's a great story all around and I highly, highly recommend it! Not surprisingly, I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars!

Have you read Illuminae yet? If so, what did you think of it? Have you read any books by any of the authors (Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman)? Let me know in the comments below! I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time,

Jenell

Chaotic Goddess Swapoween 2015 Unboxing!!

I wanted to share this here too! I had so much fun with this!