Blog Tour: The Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye | Guest Post | Giveaway

Welcome to our stop on The Crown's Game tour for Evelyn Skye. This tour is hosted by Rockstar Book Tour.

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The Crown's Game

Author: Evelyn Skye
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genres: Fantasy
Release Date: May 17th 2016
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
 

Vika Andreyeva can summon the snow and turn ash into gold. Nikolai Karimov can see through walls and conjure bridges out of thin air. They are enchanters—the only two in Russia—and with the Ottoman Empire and the Kazakhs threatening, the Tsar needs a powerful enchanter by his side.

And so he initiates the Crown’s Game, an ancient duel of magical skill—the greatest test an enchanter will ever know. The victor becomes the Imperial Enchanter and the Tsar’s most respected adviser. The defeated is sentenced to death.

Raised on tiny Ovchinin Island her whole life, Vika is eager for the chance to show off her talent in the grand capital of Saint Petersburg. But can she kill another enchanter—even when his magic calls to her like nothing else ever has?

For Nikolai, an orphan, the Crown’s Game is the chance of a lifetime. But his deadly opponent is a force to be reckoned with—beautiful, whip smart, imaginative—and he can’t stop thinking about her.

And when Pasha, Nikolai’s best friend and heir to the throne, also starts to fall for the mysterious enchantress, Nikolai must defeat the girl they both love... or be killed himself.

As long-buried secrets emerge, threatening the future of the empire, it becomes dangerously clear... the Crown’s Game is not one to lose.

Evelyn Skye’s Favorite Russian (-Related) 
Books and Movies

I am a total book nerd (obviously! I write them for a living!). I’m also a Russophile, which is why I chose to major in Russian literature & history when I was in college. But while my university days are far behind me now, I still have a special place in my heart for all those books I read, and I thought I’d share them (and a few movies, too), in case you want to delve into torturously beautiful Russia, as well.

My Favorite Russian Books:

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Fyodor Dostoevsky

THE MASTER AND MARGARITA by Mikhail Bulgakov

ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy

PETER THE FIRST by Alexei Tolstoy

SKETCHES FROM A HUNTER’S ALBUM by Ivan Turgenev

My Favorite Russian (-Related) Movies:

Man from U.N.C.L.E. (starring Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1638355/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Anna Karenina (starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1781769/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Est/Ouest (starring Oleg Menshikov, Sandrine Bonnaire, Catherine Deneuve, Sergey Bodrov Jr.)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181530/

Burnt by the Sun (starring Nikita Mikhalkov, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Oleg Menshikov)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111579/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

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Evelyn Skye was once offered a job by the C.I.A., she not-so-secretly wishes she was on "So You Think You Can Dance," and if you challenge her to a pizza-eating contest, she guarantees she will win. When she isn't writing, Evelyn can be found chasing her daughter on the playground or sitting on the couch, immersed in a good book and eating way too many cookies.

THE CROWN'S GAME is her first novel. Evelyn can be found online at www.evelynskye.com and on Twitter @EvelynSkyeYA.

1 winner will receive a beautiful custom THE CROWN’S GAME necklace (similar to the one in the photo below) made by the lovely Tales of A Ravenous Reader, US Only.

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FOLLOW THE TOUR!

5/18/2016- That Artsy Reader Girl- Review

5/19/2016- Supernatural Snark- Guest Post

5/20/2016- Mundie Moms- Review

Blog Tour: The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos | Excerpt | Giveaway

Welcome to our stop on The Mystery of Hollow Places tour for Rebecca Podos. This tour is hosted by The Fantastic Flying Book Club Tours.

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The Mystery of Hollow Places
Author: Rebecca Podos
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Mystery
Released: January 26th 2016
Publisher: Balzer & Bray

 

All Imogene Scott knows of her mother is the bedtime story her father told her as a child. It's the story of how her parents met: he, a forensic pathologist, she, a mysterious woman who came to identify a body. A woman who left Imogene and her father when she was a baby, a woman who was always possessed by a powerful loneliness, a woman who many referred to as troubled waters.

When Imogene is seventeen, her father, now a famous author of medical mysteries, strikes out in the middle of the night and doesn't come back. Neither Imogene's stepmother nor the police know where he could've gone, but Imogene is convinced he's looking for her mother. She decides to put to use the skills she's gleaned from a lifetime of her father's books to track down a woman she's never known, in order to find him and, perhaps, the answer to the question she's carried with her for her entire life.

Rebecca Podos' debut is a powerful, affecting story of the pieces of ourselves that remain mysteries even to us - the desperate search through empty spaces for something to hold on to.

The Mystery Of Hollow Places | Books | Epic Reads

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Rebecca Podos' debut YA novel, THE MYSTERY OF HOLLOW PLACES, is forthcoming from Balzer + Bray (HarperCollins) on 1/26/16. A graduate of the Writing, Literature and Publishing program at Emerson College where she won the M.F.A. Award for Best Thesis, her fiction has been published in Glimmer Train, Glyph, CAJE, Paper Darts, Bellows American Review, and Smokelong Quarterly. Past Awards include the Helman Award for Short Fiction, the David Dornstein Memorial Creative Writing Prize for Young Adult Writers, and the Hillerman-McGarrity Scholarship for Creative Writing. She works as a YA and MG agent at the Rees Literary Agency in Boston.

   

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Book Review: The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos

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The Mystery of Hollow Places
Author: Rebecca Podos
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Mystery
Released: January 26 2016
Review Source: Balzer & Bray

All Imogene Scott knows of her mother is the bedtime story her father told her as a child. It's the story of how her parents met: he, a forensic pathologist, she, a mysterious woman who came to identify a body. A woman who left Imogene and her father when she was a baby, a woman who was always possessed by a powerful loneliness, a woman who many referred to as troubled waters.

When Imogene is seventeen, her father, now a famous author of medical mysteries, strikes out in the middle of the night and doesn't come back. Neither Imogene's stepmother nor the police know where he could've gone, but Imogene is convinced he's looking for her mother. She decides to put to use the skills she's gleaned from a lifetime of her father's books to track down a woman she's never known, in order to find him and, perhaps, the answer to the question she's carried with her for her entire life.

Rebecca Podos' debut is a powerful, affecting story of the pieces of ourselves that remain mysteries even to us - the desperate search through empty spaces for something to hold on to.

The Mystery of Hollow Places was one of those books that I couldn't review right after I finished it. The story needed to settle, I gather all my thoughts and emotions on this book and figure them out, and then I could come here and let you know. Sometimes I think I like a book but then I sit back and reflect on the entire book and decide I might be jumping the gun, but then the opposite happens. This was definitely the latter. While it took me a little longer to read than most books after I finished reading it I felt so much for our main protagonist, Imogene Scott.

First things first, Imogene’s dad is missing. Just up and left and there's no reason to believe there's foul play. But Imogene is set out to find her father but her journey turns into something more. More than just finding her father, more than just finding herself, Imogene discovers a lot about herself and the people she believed she understood. What surprised me the most was that this book was heavily underlined with mental illness issues and that’s what drew me in the most and left me having to digest this books days later . The discoveries, the traveling, getting inside her father’s head and understanding his hidden messages in his books, the things he left behind and what he may be searching for.

And while I thought this book was going to be a search and solve and a dead body kind of mystery it turned a lot more insightful than I ever expected. The Mystery of Hollow Places was a surprising and intriguing read. I never realized while reading this book how much I was going to enjoy it overall and how much myself and others could relate to Imogene’s journey.

Blog Tour: Get Dirty by Gretchen McNeil | Excerpt | Giveaway

Welcome to our stop on Get Dirty tour for Gretchen McNeil. This tour is hosted by Me, My Shelf and I.

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Get Dirty
Don't Get Mad #2
Author: Gretchen McNeil
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Mystery
Released: June 16, 2015
Publisher: Balzer & Bray

  

The members of Don’t Get Mad aren’t just mad anymore . . . they’re afraid. And with Margot in a coma and Bree stuck in juvie, it’s up to Olivia and Kitty to try to catch their deadly tormentor. But just as the girls are about to go on the offensive, Ed the Head reveals a shocking secret that turns all their theories upside down. The killer could be anyone, and this time he—or she—is out for more than just revenge.

The girls desperately try to discover the killer’s identity as their personal lives are falling apart: Donté is pulling away from Kitty and seems to be hiding a secret of his own, Bree is under house arrest, and Olivia’s mother is on an emotional downward spiral. The killer is closing in, the threats are becoming more personal, and when the police refuse to listen, the girls have no choice but to confront their anonymous friend . . . or die trying.

Excerpt

Olivia’s elation turned to anger as she spun around and found Ed the Head’s grinning face in the doorway. “Where have you been?”
“The moon and back, baby,” he said, pumping his eyebrows.
Kitty took a step closer to him. “I’ve called you approximately seven thousand times since Thursday night. Nothing but voice mail. You want to explain that?”
Ed the Head shrugged. “I flushed it. The component pieces of the burner phone formerly belonging to Ed the Head are now floating somewhere in the San Francisco Bay.”
“Why did you flush your phone?” Olivia asked.
“Well, last I checked, I was texting with Margot just a few hours before she was attacked. Every cop in town is probably trying to find that phone.”
Kitty narrowed her eyes. “That sounds like an admission of guilt.”
Ed calmly pulled out a chair and sat down. “Ladies, chill. If I attacked Margot, do you think I’d be here right now talking to you?”
Olivia exchanged a glance with Kitty. He had a point.
“Why are you here?” Kitty asked.
Ed the Head slipped a piece of paper from the front pocket of his bag. “I wanted to show you this.”
Kitty snatched the paper from his hand, glancing at it briefly. “It’s a speeding ticket.”
“Highway 101 North,” Olivia read from the carbon copy. “Exit three sixty-seven, Morgan Hill.”
Ed the Head nodded. “Check the date and time.”
Olivia’s eyes zipped to the top of the form. “October seventh, nine thirty pm.”
“Exactly,” Ed said. “And Margot was attacked at approximately nine fifty according to the police report. There’s no way I could’ve made it forty miles in fifteen minutes. I didn’t do it.”
“Then why did you wait three days to tell us?” Kitty asked.
Ed dropped the glib facade, his face suddenly hard. “Because you were the only ones who knew I was supposed to meet Margot that night.”
Olivia stiffened. “What are you trying to say?”
“It might have crossed my mind that you were setting me up to take the fall.”
“You think we tried to kill Margot?” Olivia asked, horrified. “She’s our friend, you little weasel. If you think for a second—”
“Was she really your friend?” Ed jutted out his chin. “I seem to recall some pretty horrific photos of Margot from back in junior high.” He pointed at her accusingly. “Photos you took.”
Olivia’s hands began to shake as the shame of what she’d done to Margot washed over her anew. “Oh yeah?” she said, lashing out. “Well, how do we know you’re not Christopher Beeman?” She wasn’t entirely sure it made sense, but someone had to be Christopher, and they were running out of options.
Instead of denying it, Ed the Head burst out laughing.
“Why is that funny?” Kitty asked.
“If I’m Christopher Beeman,” Ed gasped, “I’ve got bigger problems than a murder rap.”
A creeping sensation spread down Olivia’s spine, as if she’d just backed into a spiderweb. Something about Ed’s tone put her on edge. “What do you mean?”
“That’s what I discovered in Arizona,” he said. “Christopher Beeman is dead.”

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Author of YA horror novels POSSESS, TEN, and 3:59, as well as the new mystery/suspense series Don't Get Mad, beginning in 2014 with GET EVEN and continuing in 2015 with GET DIRTY, all with Balzer + Bray for HarperCollins. Gretchen also contributed an essay to the Dear Teen Me anthology from Zest Books.

Gretchen is a former coloratura soprano, the voice of Mary on G4's Code Monkeys and she sings with the LA-based circus troupe Cirque Berzerk. Gretchen blogs with The Enchanted Inkpot and was a founding member of the vlog group the YARebels. She is repped by Ginger Clark of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

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Book Review: Get Dirty by Gretchen McNeil

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Get Dirty
Don't Get Mad #2
Author: Gretchen McNeil
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Mystery
Released: June 16th 2015
Review Source: Balzer & Bray

  

The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars in Gretchen McNeil’s witty and suspenseful novel about four disparate girls who join forces to take revenge on high school bullies and create dangerous enemies for themselves in the process.

Bree, Olivia, Kitty, and Margot have nothing in common—at least that’s what they’d like the students and administrators of their elite private school to think. The girls have different goals, different friends, and different lives, but they share one very big secret: They’re all members of Don’t Get Mad, a secret society that anonymously takes revenge on the school’s bullies, mean girls, and tyrannical teachers.

When their latest target ends up dead with a blood-soaked “DGM” card in his hands, the girls realize that they’re not as anonymous as they thought—and that someone now wants revenge on them. Soon the clues are piling up, the police are closing in . . . and everyone has something to lose.

It breaks my heart to say this, Get Dirty fall short of the mark. I loved how easy and fast paced the first one was read. However, this one took me a while to get into.

While reading the story, I had issues remembering the names of the characters. I kept repeating their names and I tried to keep up with their POVs but IT.WAS.HARD. I just couldn’t focus, at all. Everything blurred. At one point I had to skimmed through. Even though I had these issues, I kept seeing the murderer's name everywhere. Which was such a bummer when I read this is the person causing all the mayhem.

Get Dirty picks up right where Get Even left off. The gang are trying to stay strong and find ways to pinpoint the killer. But little by little, they see a pattern - everyone they “get even” with, are either hurt or dead. And every evidence is pointing to DMG. As they become desperate, they start adding members to the group, even those they shouldn’t. It was only a matter of time for their lack of judgment—and their lack of ability to make judgments—finally caught up with them.

At the end, everyone suffers but they learn a great lesson. Not everything is black and white. There are reasons for actions and no one has the rights to make judgments. Worst, make things more complicated than what they are. What DMG was doing was not an act of “get even” but just another act of bullying. Two wrongs don't make a right. Bullying a bully is also wrong. I liked the message of the story.

Although the story is slow and the mystery wasn’t my liking, at the end of all - it holds a great message - this is what I loved.