Nira’s voice pulled me right into her story. Her character is fully three-dimensional and it’s easy to empathize with both her struggles be the good daughter her parents and her aspirations to fight her own dreams. Highly recommended. Continue reading Recommended: IN THE KEY OF NIRA GHANI
Serving as a judge for the CYBILS Book Awards provided me with the opportunity to discuss 7 great stories with fellow book nerds. I read the spec fic category, which includes fantasy, sci fi, magical realism, and alternate history – all genres with lots of world building and action! If this is the type of story you enjoy, you should check out these short-listed books. It was hard to pick a winner! Continue reading The CYBILS Award YA Speculative Fiction Short List – A Wrap-up
Enchantée reaches from a humble 6th-floor apartment in the Paris slums to the
glimmering Palace of Versailles. It’s clear from the story that you love both of these settings. What was the most fun aspect of writing about Paris? Versailles?
The thing that drew
me into both the settings was the element of danger. In Paris, there was the danger of starvation, the possibility that Camille (Enchantée’s main character) would be forced to become a
prostitute, and that every dark corner hid physical danger. The danger at Versailles was really different—gambling, the chance that Camille could lose all the money she’d gathered to keep a roof over her and her younger sister’s heads, and the danger of her disguise being seen through by multiple people. That was fun to write.
The contrast between the two settings was really interesting to play with. The darkness of Paris and the glittering brightness of Versailles. Continue reading On Creating Magic Rules & Researching the Streets of Paris in 1789: An Interview with Gita Trelease, Author of Enchantée
A heist, a unique magic system and a found family comprised of diverse characters. I had to read this book! Continue reading Recommended: THE GILDED WOLVES by Roshani Chokshi
Love. Magic. Revolution…
Enchantée is Gita Trelease’s imaginative debut fantasy about an impoverished magician desperate to provide for her beloved sister on the eve of the French Revolution. Continue reading Recommended: ALL THAT GLITTERS (ENCHANTÉE, 1) by Gita Trelease
Publisher’s Description of Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful For fans of television shows Black Mirror and Westworld, this compelling, mind-bending novel is a twisted look into the future, exploring the lengths we’ll go to remake ourselves into the perfect human specimen and what it means to be human at all. The future is curious. STRONGER Today our bodies define us. We color our hair; tattoo … Continue reading Recommended: STRONGER, FASTER, AND MORE BEAUTIFUL by Arwen Elys Dayton
Publisher’s Description Owen Foster has never wanted for anything. Then his mother shows up at his elite New Orleans boarding school cradling a bombshell: his privileged life has been funded by stolen money. After using the family business, the single largest employer in his small Louisiana town, to embezzle millions and drain the employees’ retirement accounts, Owen’s father vanished without a trace, leaving Owen and … Continue reading Recommended: THE LYING WOODS by Ashley Elston
Book awards are important! Writers can’t read every book on their TBR list even though they devote tons of time to reading! Kids are pulled in tons of different directions by school, sports, texts, television, games and more. If a book has some buzz or wins an award, that might give a child the extra push he or she needs to check out the first … Continue reading Nominate Your Favorite Kidlit Books for the Cybils Awards!
Publisher’s Description of Salt Roaming the Mediterranean Sea on sailboats and hunting down monsters is the only life seventeen-year-old Indi and his siblings have ever known. He never loved it, but now that his parents are gone—vanished during a hunt three months ago—it’s harder and harder to fight his desire to escape. He’s constantly battling his ferocious love for his siblings and the temptation of … Continue reading Recommended: SALT by Hannah Moscowitz
Publisher’s Description Nita doesn’t murder supernatural beings and sell their body parts on the internet—her mother does that. Nita just dissects the bodies after they’ve been “acquired.” Until her mom brings home a live specimen and Nita decides she wants out; dissecting a scared teenage boy is a step too far. But when she decides to save her mother’s victim, she ends up sold in … Continue reading Recommended: NOT EVEN BONES by Rebecca Schaeffer
Writers frequently hear that one of the most important things they can do to improve their craft is to read. Read in their genre. Read broadly. Read critically. Today I’m going to ask writers to consider going one step further. Don’t just read, but to serve as a judge for a book award. Judging a book award forces you to read A LOT over a … Continue reading 6 Reasons Writers Should Judge a Book Award Such as the CYBILS [Updated 2020]
July is here and my mind is on vacation. And if you know me, then you know that thoughts of vacation naturally lead to books. I’ve been reading a lot of young adult books in the fantasy, sci-fi and thriller genres, so I thought I’d put together a list of ones I loved. I added some recommendations from the Pennies too. This list focuses on … Continue reading 10 Young Adult Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Thriller Books You Want in Your Beach Bag
