The Chosen by Sheenah Freitas

Source: Author

Kaia's entire life has erupted in flames after an assassin appears and burns her village down. She's rescued by a god from another planet who requests her help because she's the descendant of their last savior. Together with Reeze -- the only other survivor from her village and her appointed guardian -- they set off on a quest to find the treasures of the gods in hopes of preventing a dire prophesy. Kaia and Reeze quickly meet the Tueors, a group of people many thought extinct, who are searching specifically for Kaia. Their intention: to protect the truth. As Kaia discovers more about the truth and her family's past, she also learns of the Tueors' bloody secret. Will Kaia be the savior the gods have been waiting for? Or will she let the prophesy come true?

I read an unedited ARC, so this might change by the time that it is published. There were several words that were used in the wrong context and other times, the phrasing just seemed wrong or made little sense. The world building could have been more believable. I just didn't see why it was based on a sister planet of Earth. It just didn't seem realistic or likely. I think that with more editing, this book could be very exciting. The characters each had distinct and unique personalities that I enjoyed. The plot was rather exciting too. After the kinks are fixed, I would recommend this book to fans of Fantasy.

Blog Tour: Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

Today, I have Nova Ren Suma here, with a secret about Imaginary Girls.
I’m here spilling secrets about my book Imaginary Girls. As the cover says, “Secrets never stay below the surface.” I guess not, because here’s another one bubbling up now…
Secret #6: It wasn’t Ruby who lost the ring a boy gave her in the reservoir. It was me.
There are these lines in the opening chapter of Imaginary Girls, and I don’t think I’m giving anything away if I share them here:

“Ruby once lost a ring a boy gave her, a ring handcrafted by his father, given as a promise she never meant to keep. So for Ruby the reservoir took what she wanted, almost as if they shared an understanding. Everyone else had to be

more careful.”

I wrote in that detail about the ring because I thought it said something about Ruby, about how little she cared about most anyone who cared about her. But if I’m being honest with these secrets, losing the boy’s ring in the reservoir is not a random detail I stumbled on out of nowhere. It’s something that actually happened—to me.

When I was seventeen or so, a boy who liked me gave me a ring his father had made. It was silver, and something he said meant a lot to him. It was also a little too big for my finger. One day I was with my friends and we took a swim in the reservoir and I remember thinking that maybe I should take off the ring before I went in. But I forgot, and pretty soon there was the moment after I’d dunked my head in when I came up and realized my hand felt light. The ring was gone. I felt around for it in the water, on the rocks at my feet… but it was too late. I couldn’t find it and I had to tell the boy that I’d lost it, and I guess he had to tell his dad.
In Imaginary Girls, it’s Ruby who lost the ring to the reservoir, as if she let it slip off her finger on purpose. I’ll admit that I didn’t really want that boy’s ring on my finger, but that’s the difference between Ruby and me. I still feel terrible for losing it.

Nova answered a question that I had too:
Your first book, Dani Noir, was Middle Grade and Imaginary Girls is Young Adult Fiction. How did you switch the voice to a different audience? What was the most difficult part of writing Imaginary Girls?
Sometimes I’m asked about why I switched from middle-grade to YA, since my first published book was the middle-grade novel Dani Noir, and I see why people would think I started in middle-grade and branched off to YA later. The thing is, though Dani Noir was published first and it’s the first image readers may have of me, in fact I started writing Imaginary Girls before it. When I got the opportunity to write Dani Noir, the editor I was working with was at a middle-grade/tween imprint, so I had to keep Dani Noir in that age range. I actually put an old version of the Imaginary Girls manuscript aside to write Dani Noir, and then as soon as I could I picked up Imaginary Girls again.
I admit I was worried that I wouldn’t have the chance to publish YA, that I wouldn’t be allowed to write both, but I’m thrilled to see how things turned out. Switching voices between the audiences is really only a matter of finding the voice of my character and staying true to her. Dani in Dani Noir is a snarky thirteen-year-old with a wild imagination. And Chloe in Imaginary Girls is an imaginative sixteen-year-old with a blind devotion to her older sister. I guess what they both share is the vivid imagination, even though they focus on different things.
I’d say the most difficult part of writing Imaginary Girls was getting it right. A lot of revision went into this manuscript—a lot of retooling and reimagining and a great many pages were thrown out to find the story that needed to be told. At the time I didn’t know if I could do it—I really honestly didn’t—but I look back on all the months of work from where I sit now and am so grateful I put my all into this. It was the hardest I’ve ever worked on anything, and I love what it became.

If you want to learn more about Imaginary Girls, visit Nova on twitter or on her website, you can also read a sample here. Penguin was nice enough to offer a signed hardcover to one winner in the US. If you want to enter, just fill out the form below. Contest ends July 1st.

Blog tour with Teresa Frohock, author of Miserere

Today I have Teresa Frohock for One Question blog tour. She is the author of Miserere, which comes out on July 5th. I hope you enjoy the post. She will be answering, "What fantasy novels inspired you to initially write in that genre?"
This is going to be utter blasphemy, but it wasn’t The Lord of the Rings. Frankly, I have YET to get through all three novels. I enjoyed The Hobbit, and I love Viggo Morg--, er, the Lord of the Rings movies, but The Lord of the Rings wasn’t the fantasy that opened my soul.
It was Grendel. You see, I have loved Beowulf from the first time I laid eyes on the opening lines. It was that combination of poetry and epic adventure that really sang to me. Then I read John Gardner’s Grendel and spent my entire adolescence trying to find another novel like it.
I didn’t understand everything Gardner was writing about when I was fifteen, but there was something in that story that called to me. Maybe it was because I was always the misfit and felt like the monster on the outside looking in, waving my hands and saying, “No, no! It’s not like that at all! Pay attention to the truth!”
I think I’ve read Grendel twenty times since then. It’s a comfort novel for me, and I love what Gardner shows us about perspective and the power of storytelling. I knew that if I wrote stories, this was what I wanted to write.
Two other novels that greatly impacted my early love of fantasy were The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip and Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn. I loved the way the stories were so simple on the surface, but if you dropped a pebble of thought into the pool and looked a little deeper, then you could see the layers the authors’ had placed within their words. That was what I wanted to write with Miserere. I wanted to write a story that would appeal to people looking for a casual read with a resounding good tale, but I wanted to have layers in the story too.
Whether I was successful or not will be known soon enough. I just want people to enjoy Lucian’s story. However, don’t be afraid to look a little deeper, you might find that I’ve buried a gem or two within the prose.
What about you? If you’re a writer, tell us what books inspire you to write in your chosen genre. If you’re a reader, what novels draw you to your favorite genre?
The next interview in the blog tour will be at Arya’s Sea of Pages where I’ll be talking about the characters that surprised me in MISERERE. I hope you’ll join me there.

Here is about the author:
Raised in a small town, Teresa Frohock learned to escape to other worlds through the fiction collection of her local library. She eventually moved away from Reidsville and lived in Virginia and South Carolina before returning to North Carolina, where she currently resides with her husband and daughter.
Teresa has long been accused of telling stories, which is a southern colloquialism for lying. Miserere: An Autumn Tale is her debut novel.
Teresa can be found most often at her blog and web site. Every now and then, she heads over to Tumblr and sends out Dark Thoughts, links to movies and reviews that catch her eye. You can also follow Teresa on Twitter and join her author page on Facebook.

If you want to learn more about the book, watch the trailer below or read the first four chapters here.

“Before the Split” Blog Tour

To honor National Domestic Violence Awareness month, author Swati Avasthi is combining a blog tour for her debut novel, Split, with a fundraiser for Family Violence Prevention Fund. She’ll be on twenty-six blogs with contests, cut scenes, and guest posts about Split and will donate $1/comment with a goal and cap of $250. If she receives 250 comments, she’ll double her donation. She has a lot of fund raising help from more than 40 agents, editors and authors who have donated personalized books, memberships, and critiques for an online auction. Follow the tour, get stuff you want, and help out a great cause all at once.