Cover Reveal: Witch Hearts by Liz Long (@LizCLong)

Posted on April 8, 2013 by TheHouseworkCanWait

Today I’m happy to participate in the cover reveal for Witch Hearts, the upcoming adult paranormal thriller from Liz Long. I enjoyed Liz’s first book, Gifted: A Donovan Circus Novel, and I also find Liz to be an absolutely delightful person. So when she asked for help promoting her new book, I was happy to do it!

I’ll let Liz take it from here!

Hi everyone! I want to thank the amazing authors and bloggers who volunteered to help with today’s cover reveal. Indies wouldn’t be here without their help and of course, you guys. I am so excited to show off the cover for my new book – I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks!

Witch Hearts is my second novel, an adult paranormal thriller meant for those who liked to be a little creeped out and also enjoy a murder mystery. My first book, Gifted, A Donovan Circus Novel, is about a murder at a supernatural circus, and is available at Amazon on Kindle and paperback. Now without further ado, the cover for Witch Hearts!

Witch Hearts Synopsis:

How does a witch stay safe if a killer can get through her protection spells?

Witches like Ruby and Courtney can take care of themselves. So when Courtney is murdered, Ruby’s world crashes to a halt. The only thing keeping her grounded is the return of Courtney’s brother, Cooper. He seeks revenge, but Ruby wants to help other witches stay alive. To do that, she’ll have to reunite with her old coven’s High Priest, who also happens to be her cheating ex-boyfriend.

If that wasn’t awkward enough, when the killer gets too close, Cooper temporarily moves into Ruby’s place while a police officer tails her every move. Cooper’s presence distracts Ruby as they fight their desire against their need to stay safe. Then Courtney begins to haunt Ruby’s dreams and secrets are spilled, things from Cooper’s past that could get them both killed. The killer continues to stalk Ruby and the more she discovers, the more she fears she won’t be able to keep her heart in her chest.

About the Author:

Liz Long is lucky enough to have a dream career in magazine publishing as an editor and writer, yet still have time to create adventures on the side. If you catch her staring off into space or talking to herself, don’t worry – it’s just her imagination at work.

Liz graduated from Longwood University with a BA in English, though her professors might be disappointed to hear she reads more fantasy fiction than literary novels. She also loves action and thriller genres. This book probably won’t change your life, but she hopes it steals you away from reality for a while.

Her first book, Gifted, a Donovan Circus Novel, is also available for paperback and Kindle on Amazon.

To learn more about Liz, visit her website: http://lizclong.com

Well, what do we think of the Witch Hearts cover? I told Liz it was going to give me nightmares. She said that was the goal. So. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Review: Hopeless by Colleen Hoover (@colleenhoover)

Posted on April 1, 2013 by TheHouseworkCanWait

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 (March 28) – The Host

Posted on March 27, 2013 by TheHouseworkCanWait

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

Here’s how it works:

Pick any bookish or literary-related media (or non-media item) released more than 5 years ago.
Write up a short summary (include the title, author, and cover art, if applicable) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list – or some other classic!

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!

Blog Tour: Poison by Bridget Zinn (#POISON @HyperionTeens)

Posted on March 18, 2013 by TheHouseworkCanWait

Today I am so excited to participate in the blog tour for Poison by Bridget Zinn. Poison is Bridget’s debut, but she passed away before she could see her book on shelves and in readers’ hands. This tour is being organized by her husband in her memory, and over 100 bloggers and authors are participating. To see the full list of blogs on the tour, check out this post.

Now, I have not finished reading Poison yet (although I’ve started it!), but so far I can tell you that it’s a fresh and fun fantasy adventure. And there’s an enchanted piglet, which means it’s pretty much guaranteed to be worthwhile. I’ll put up a full review once I’ve finished.

But today, for the tour, we’re supposed to talk about firsts. Any first, within the realm of information suitable for the Internet (which, despite what one might deduce from watching Twitter or Tumblr or Facebook, is not EVERYTHING).

So. Because it is late and this is the only semi-interesting “first” story I can think of, you’re going to get the story of the first time I went water skiing. I shall call it:

The River Wild, But Without Kevin Bacon, Meryl Streep, or Rapids

When I was in high school, I had a small but awesome group of friends in my church youth group. And one of these friends had a dad who owned a boat. One beautiful summer day, he took a group of us out on the Schuylkill River (which is not known for its sparkling clarity, but whatever) to learn how to water ski.

His daughter went first, to demonstrate the proper technique. She was a year older than me and about a thousand times more coordinated. She made it look easy. She even dropped one ski and glided around on one leg for a while. Piece of cake, right?

No.

When it was my turn, I jumped in the water, bobbing in my life jacket like a misshapen apple in a barrel, and slipped the skis on. And by “slipped,” I mean fought desperately for several minutes. The skis wanted to be on top of the water. My body did not. This was a problem. The boat circled lazily around me as I flopped and floundered like a dying fish, until finally I had the skis on my feet.

Then came the task of grabbing the rope. The boat circled again, and the rope slithered across the top of the water behind my back. I grabbed at it, but couldn’t seem to maneuver my ski-addled body close enough. So the boat came around again. And again. And again. I flailed and flushed and considered stripping off the life jacket and skis and calling it quits (never mind that I wasn’t sure if I could get them off after the amount of effort it took to get them on, and I would most likely drown trying).

But my stubborn nature took over, and I refused to give up before I’d even attempted the actual skiing part. So after half a dozen boat passes, I finally grabbed the handle at the end of the rope.

Then I was supposed to prop my feet up in front of me, birthing style, and grip the handle between my knees. In case you have never tried to do this while wearing a life jacket and large wooden planks strapped to your feet, while floating in a semi-viscous river and watched by a group of teenage friends who are all at least three levels cooler than you, this is not as easy as it sounds. Oh, also, the rope was attached to the boat, and the boat was still moving. Which means I’m attempting to do this while being dragged slowly down the river.

Not awesome, people. Not. Awesome.

Finally — finally — I was in position. “Ready?” my friend’s dad called, and I gave a thumbs-up like everything I had done was totally cool and not at all painfully awkward. The motor grumbled and the boat surged, and I lifted up out of the water — HUZZAH! — and then pitched forward and fell flat on my face. I was upright for maybe half a second. Maybe.

That’s no problem, my friends called. That’s totally normal. No one gets up the first time. So I tried again. More flailing, more near-drowning, more stubborn pride, more face-planting. This went on for upwards of an hour.

Finally, I dragged myself back onto the boat, all spaghetti-armed and pathetic, having never actually water skied during my turn to water ski.

Other friends took turns, to varying degrees of success. We took a break for lunch. I ate a sandwich that tasted like failure. “You know,” my friend’s dad said, “you should try again after lunch. Sometimes it just takes your subconscious a little while to process what went wrong. I’ll bet if you try again, you’ll be able to do it.”

Yes. Because if at first you fail miserably at a water sport, you should try it again immediately after eating. This sounds like excellent logic.

But even though I was sure I could never do it, I agreed to try again. Never mind that I was fairly certain my subconscious had been focused mostly on how to create a portal through the dock back to my bedroom at home, where I could hide forever until everyone forgot I had ever attempted this, and not on what went wrong water skiing. I was 100% certain I was about to fall on my face again, make a fool of myself, and possibly die.

But then something miraculous happened.

I did it.

I did it.

I pulled myself up out of the water…and I didn’t fall. I rode the wake behind the boat, the wind whipped through my hair, and I was water skiing.

And in that moment, I didn’t care about all the failures and embarrassments of the morning. I didn’t care that I snorted water up my nose. I didn’t care that the force of the water around my body as I was pulled out of the water did very uncomfortable things to the back of my bathing suit. And I didn’t care that my form was probably less water sprite and a little more hippo ballerina. I had done it. I had accomplished the thing I was sure I would never accomplish, and what’s more — I loved it.

After that, I didn’t go water skiing often, but when I did, getting up out of the water was never a problem. My brain had conquered whatever that mystical thing is that brains do, and had figured out a way around my glitch. And every time I went, I felt exhilarated, empowered, and proud. My family went to Aruba a couple years later and my brother and I went water skiing in the ocean. The guys on the boat were impressed that the waves didn’t trip us up.

The truth is, those waves couldn’t come close to competing with that first obstacle: the part of me that was sure I couldn’t do it, ever, no matter how hard I tried. Once I was able to overcome that, the Atlantic Ocean didn’t seem like such a big deal.

So, there’s my “first” story. What about you? Any big “firsts” in your life that you’d like to share?

And congratulations to Bridget, and her friends and family, on this momentous “first.”

About Poison

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?About Bridget Zinn

Bridget grew up in Wisconsin. She went to the county fair where she met the love of her life, Barrett Dowell. They got married right before she went in for exploratory surgery which revealed she had colon cancer. They christened that summer the “summer of love” and the two celebrated with several more weddings. Bridget continued to read and write until the day she died. Her last tweet was “Sunshine and a brand new book. Perfect.”

Bridget wanted to make people laugh and hoped readers would enjoy spending time with the characters she created. As a librarian/writer she loved books with strong young women with aspirations. She also felt teens needed more humorous reads. She really wanted to write a book with pockets of warmth and happiness and hoped that her readers’ copies would show the watermarks of many bath time reads.

Purchase your copy of Poison

Add Poison to your Goodreads pile!

Review: The Runaway King by Jennifer A. Nielsen (@nielsenwriter @Scholastic)

Posted on March 9, 2013 by TheHouseworkCanWait

It’s no big secret that I loved the first book of Jennifer Nielsen’s Ascendance Trilogy, The False Prince. So I was thrilled to finally get my hands on the sequel, The Runaway King. But would it be able to stand up to its predecessor? After all, one of my favorite things about The False Prince was the amazing twist ending, and I wasn’t sure if a sequel could hold up without a similar lightning-strike moment. Then again, if the characters and the story and the writing were still strong, did it need a twist? Maybe not.

Warning – this review will contain spoilers from The False Prince. Proceed at your own risk.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

Just weeks after Jaron has taken the throne, an assassination attempt forces him into a deadly situation. Rumors of a coming war are winding their way between the castle walls, and Jaron feels the pressure quietly mounting within Carthya. Soon, it becomes clear that deserting the kingdom may be his only hope of saving it. But the further Jaron is forced to run from his identity, the more he wonders if it is possible to go too far. Will he ever be able to return home again? Or will he have to sacrifice his own life in order to save his kingdom?

My Thoughts

The Runaway King picks up almost immediately after The False Prince ends, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good because it plunges you straight into the action (and there is quite a bit of action in this one!); bad because if you’re like me and haven’t read TFP in nearly a year, it can be a little confusing to hit the ground running without time to catch your bearings. I might have had to go brush up on the last couple chapters of TFP before continuing on. But that’s okay. You know why? Because the last couple chapters of TFP are awesome.

All the big players from TFP are back in some capacity, as friends and conspirators and spies and villains. Jaron is still the same dangerously cocky youth pulled from the streets, but with a big exception: he is now the king. And the fate of his kingdom rests on his shoulders.

As in TFP, Jaron’s narration is the main driver of the story. If he was a girl, I’d say he’s sassy. Actually, who cares. He’s sassy. He is a swaggering, secretive, sassy boy with a savior complex and trust issues. He comes brimming with strengths and shortcomings, and a lot of the time, he is his own worst enemy. His convoluted plan probably does not need to be nearly as convoluted as it is, but since he’s determined not to show his hand to anyone — even those that could help him — he sets himself up for difficulty. It can be frustrating, especially as other characters are telling him this is a fault and he’s refusing to listen — but at the same time, it’s incredibly true to the character. Everything he does makes sense to him, and that’s the most I can ask from any character in any story.

The supporting characters came and went throughout the story. Probably one of the most important was Imogen, his friend from TFP. Her moments are some of my favorites, as she is smart and strong, yet isn’t afraid to use her perceived weakness as a female to her advantage. Her friendship with Jaron isn’t fair and isn’t balanced, and really, he doesn’t deserve her. Yet she’s there anyway, and he appreciates her for it, in his own way.

The action is plentiful, and there’s never that long of a break between tussles and sword fights. Jennifer Nielsen’s depiction of the action is vivid and allowed me to play the fights out in my head like a movie, which isn’t easy. I did find a couple of the scenes toward the end a bit far-fetched, but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief a bit. The things Jaron does are not impossible — I don’t think — just improbable. I can deal with improbable.

There’s only one character motivation head-scratcher moment, and it’s toward the end. A character switches sides, and it seemed a little too easy. It wasn’t nearly as large a twist as the first book in the series, but it was still unexpected, and I’m not sure it was foreshadowed sufficiently. It’s a fine line to walk, revealing enough details to make the twist believable, without tipping your hand. I feel like this book was almost there, but not quite.

However, those minor complaints aside, I still very much enjoyed this story. It’s the kind of book and series I imagine would get kids — boys and girls alike — excited about reading. It’s clever and funny and has enough action and heart to interest a wide variety of readers, with a fabulously well-developed protagonist and intelligent plotting. Whenever the conclusion to The Ascendance Trilogy hits shelves, you can bet I’ll be at the front of the line.