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Friday, January 31, 2014

Blog Tour- HER DARK CURIOSITY and a Giveaway!!!!


I am so excited to have Megan Shepherd here today to take us on a tour of the London from HER DARK CURIOSITY! I freaking loved this book just like it's predecessor THE MADMAN'S DAUGHTER this one will make my top 10's lists at the end of the year! I love the dark beauty of these books and I am dying to get my hands on book 3! Make sure to enter the giveaway below for an awesome prize pack that includes the books and tea (which I have and is delicious!)!

Haven't heard of HER DARK CURIOSITY? Check it out!

Title: HER DARK CURIOSITY
Author: Megan Shepherd
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Pages: 432
Pub. Date: January 28, 2014
Find it: GoodreadsAmazonBarnes & Noble
To defeat the darkness, she must first embrace it.

Months have passed since Juliet Moreau returned to civilization after escaping her father's island—and the secrets she left behind. Now, back in London once more, she is rebuilding the life she once knew and trying to forget Dr. Moreau’s horrific legacy—though someone, or something, hasn’t forgotten her.

As people close to Juliet fall victim one by one to a murderer who leaves a macabre calling card of three clawlike slashes, Juliet fears one of her father’s creations may have also escaped the island. She is determined to find the killer before Scotland Yard does, though it means awakening sides of herself she had thought long banished, and facing loves from her past she never expected to see again.

As Juliet strives to stop a killer while searching for a serum to cure her own worsening illness, she finds herself once more in the midst of a world of scandal and danger. Her heart torn in two, past bubbling to the surface, life threatened by an obsessive killer—Juliet will be lucky to escape alive.

With inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this is a tantalizing mystery about the hidden natures of those we love and how far we’ll go to save them from themselves.



Now on to the post!

The HER DARK CURIOSITY tour of London (Note: These are Megan's own pictures she took while in London)

The second book in the Madman’s Daughter series is set in London. Because it’s such an iconic city, I knew I had to go there in order to capture the perfect mood. In the winter of 2012, I scoured the city to find the perfect balance of dark and beautiful settings for Juliet Moreau’s adventures.

Kensington Botanical Gardens

Based on the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, several scenes in the book take place around the frozen lake, the stone statuary, and the steamy tropical greenhouse that evokes Moreau’s island. Because Kew Gardens is outside of central London, I created a fictional botanical garden closer to the action called Kensington. However, anyone familiar with Kew Gardens will recognize much of the iconic architecture, including the Palm House. When I visited Kew Gardens, I found centuries old machinery and spiral staircases intertwined with overgrown vines. It was the perfect setting for some epic chase                                                                    scenes.



Whitechapel & Shoreditch
At the time of The Madman’s Daughter, Jack the Ripper would still be fresh in the public’s minds. Whitechapel was the seedy neighborhood where the Ripper staged his murders, and it also is mentioned in Jekyll & Hyde. I used Whitechapel and the poor but more respectable neighborhood of Shoreditch as the locations for some of the more gruesome elements of the story. It’s where Juliet has her secret attic where she grafts rosebushes for money, and where the story’s murderer lurks. When I took a Jack the Ripper tour in Whitechapel, it was so unsettling that one woman in the group fainted!

Belgravia
In sharp contrast to Whitechapel and Shoreditch, the Belgrave Square area of London is where most of the story’s wealthy characters live, in addition to being the location of many embassies and notable churches. Juliet was born in a house located on the square, and her best friend Lucy lived not far away, and her new ward, Professor von Stein, lives on a fictional street nearly. I named the street Dumbarton Oaks after a beautiful park I used to work near in Washington DC. On my trip to London, my husband and I stayed in a hotel in this area, because much of it is the original buildings from the nineteenth century.

Covent Garden
Covent Garden was one of the main market areas of Victorian London, where one could purchase anything one desired. There were different areas for vegetables, fabrics, flowers, shoes, and other goods. It’s a great contrast because shoppers of all economic levels mixed here. In HER DARK CURIOSITY, Juliet is friends with a butcher and adopts his dog, Sharkey. Covent Garden is where she goes to escape polite society and also sell her grafted rosebushes.

King’s College
King’s College is a prominent setting in the Madman’s Daughter series. It is where Juliet’s father worked, and where she worked as a maid. In HER DARK CURIOSITY Juliet and her associates spend much time wandering the elegant staircases, the dark basements, and the secret classrooms. I based it off the historic Strand Campus of King’s College, which still houses the school of natural sciences (among other disciplines). Of course some of the building is fictionalized, such as the King’s Club’s smoking room packed with taxidermied prizes, and the laboratory in the basement, but much of it is based on the real building, including these great old                                                            labyrinthine staircases.

Thanks Megan! I love all the pics very cool!



About Megan:

Hello! 

I’ve been many things, like a professional exchange student, park ranger in Montana, and LOST enthusiast, but what I am now is a writer.

I think it’s fair to say I was born into it. I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, raised behind the counter of my parents’ independent bookstore, Highland Books in Brevard. Ah, so many free books. But I never thought being a writer could be a real career. After college I thought I’d end up as a foreign service officer somewhere dashing and exotic, like Canada. I studied French, Spanish, German, and Russian and still speak a few of those. Then I joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Senegal, where I learned a few more languages I’ll never speak again and lived in a mud hut with no electricity or running water. You can probably imagine how that experience went, but if you’re curious, here are the dirty details

It wasn't until a chance aquaintance read something I wrote and said, "have you ever considered being a writer?" that something clicked and I realized it was possible. My husband encouraged me, and I quickly fell head-over-heels in love with writing and children's literature in particular. I started out writing articles, which have appeared in Faces, Appleseeds, and Calliope magazines, and stories for younger children. I soon realized I wasn’t sweet enough to write fiction for that age and found myself writing young adult literature instead, which doesn’t require nearly as many tender moments and includes a lot more cursing.

When I'm not writing, I can usually be found horseback riding, day dreaming at coffee shops, or hiking in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina. I love to hear from readers, so please drop me a line!

I am represented by Josh Adams of Adams Literary.

Author Photo by Kristi Hedberg Photography






Giveaway Details:

1 grand prize pack a paper back of Madman's Daughter, hardcover of Her Dark Curiosity, a tea canister for both books, and bookmarks. US/Canada Only


5 Tea prize packs that will include individual custom book tea bags and bookmarks! US/Canada Only
a Rafflecopter giveaway


Here’s the Tour Schedule!

Week One:
1/20/2014- A Backwards StoryInterview
1/21/2014- Crossroad ReviewsReview
1/22/2014- Step Into FictionInterview
1/23/2014- Chapter by ChapterReview
1/24/2014- Tales of the Ravenous ReaderInterview
Week Two:
1/27/2014- Mundie MomsGuest Post
1/28/2014- All Things Urban FantasyGuest Post
1/29/2014- Bookhounds yaReview
1/30/2014- Confessions of a ReadaholicReview
1/31/2014- Two Chicks on BooksGuest Post

Cover Reveal- NOW THAT YOU'RE HERE by Amy K. Nichols and a Giveaway!



Today I get to help reveal a gorgeous cover! NOW THAT YOU'RE HERE by Amy K. Nichols. I can't wait to get my hands on this book. ooh and there's a giveaway so check that out!



On to the reveal!



About the Book
 NOW THAT YOU'RE HERE 
Author: Amy K. Nichols
Release Date: December 9, 2014
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Danny and Eevee are meant to be together . . . Just not in this universe.


Eevee Solomon has high school down to a science. Get the grades. Get the recommendations. Get into an Ivy League college, and eventually land a killer job at NASA.


Then Danny Ogden enters the equation.


Danny is a street-smart graffiti artist. He’s always managed to stay out of serious trouble, but this time he’s out of luck. One minute he’s running from the cops, and the next, he jolts awake in an unfamiliar body–his own, but different. Somehow, he’s crossed into a parallel universe. Now his friends are his enemies, his parents are long dead, and coolheaded Eevee is not the brazen girl he once kissed back home. Then again, this Eevee may be his only hope of getting home.


Eevee tells herself she’s only helping him in the name of quantum physics, but there’s something undeniably fascinating about this boy from another dimension . . . a boy who makes her question who she is, and who she might be in another place and time.





About Amy:
Amy has been crafting stories for as long as she can remember. She earned a Master's in literature and worked for years as a web designer, though, before realizing what she really wanted to be was an author. Her first novel, YA sci-fi thriller Now That You're Here, will be published by Knopf Books for Young Readers on December 9, 2014. The follow-up, While You Were Gone, will be published in 2015. She is mentored by award-winning crime novelist James Sallis.

Amy is represented by Quinlan Lee of Adams Literary. She's an active member of SCBWI and SFWA, as well as a member of the Class of 2k14 debut authors. 

Website/Blog/Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/Pinterest/Goodreads/Class of 2K14


Giveaway Details:

$25 in Pay Pal Cash!!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Dying to Read (47)- THE KISS OF DECEPTION by Mary E. Pearson


Hey y’all thanks for stopping by to see my Dying to Read post and of course as always I have to give credit to the lovely Jill over at Breaking the Spine for the Waiting on Wednesday Meme!

This week the book I’m dying to read is THE KISS OF DECEPTION by Mary E. Pearson! I love high fantasy and this one seems like it will be right up my alley! Also I love this cover it's so pretty!


THE KISS OF DECEPTION (The Morrighan Chronicles book #1)
Mary E. Pearson
Release Date: May 13, 2014
Hardcover: 496pages
Publisher: Henry Holt (Macmillan) 
ISBN: 978-0805099232

In this timeless new trilogy about love and sacrifice, a princess must find her place in a reborn world.

In a society steeped in tradition, Princess Lia’s life follows a preordained course. As First Daughter, she is expected to have the revered gift of sight—but she doesn’t—and she knows her parents are perpetrating a sham when they arrange her marriage to secure an alliance with a neighboring kingdom—to a prince she has never met.

On the morning of her wedding, Lia flees to a distant village. She settles into a new life, hopeful when two mysterious and handsome strangers arrive—and unaware that one is the jilted prince and the other an assasin sent to kill her. Deception abounds, and Lia finds herself on the brink of unlocking perilous secrets—even as she finds herself falling in love.

So what do you think? Will you be adding this to your pile? What are you dying to read this week?

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Blog Tour: MANOR OF SECRETS and a Giveaway!


I am so excited to have my friend, Katherine Longshore here today to take us on a tour of The Manor! I freaking love Katherine's writing! I'm normally not a big contemporary/historical girl but her storytelling is magical! Make sure to enter the giveaway below for a copy of the book!

Haven't heard of MANOR OF SECRETS? Check it out!

MANOR OF SECRETS
Author: Katherine Longshore
Release Date: January 28, 2014
Pages: 320
Publisher: Point (Scholastic)

The year is 1911. And at The Manor, nothing is as it seems . . .

Lady Charlotte Edmonds: Beautiful, wealthy, and sheltered, Charlotte feels suffocated by the strictures of upper-crust society. She longs to see the world beyond The Manor, to seek out high adventure. And most of all, romance.

Janie Seward: Fiery, hardworking, and clever, Janie knows she can be more than just a kitchen maid. But she isn't sure she possesses the courage -- or the means -- to break free and follow her passions.

Both Charlotte and Janie are ready for change. As their paths overlap in the gilded hallways and dark corridors of The Manor, rules are broken and secrets are revealed. Secrets that will alter the course of their lives. . . forever.

Now on to the post!

The Manor stands at the crest of a hill in the Weald of Kent, just a few miles from Ashdown Forest (made famous by A.A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood), and Hever Castle (Anne Boleyn’s childhood home).  A high stone wall separates the estate from the road, making it accessible only by the long, narrow drive, monitored by the gatekeeper whose cottage presides over the entrance.

Once through the gate, the drive proceeds across a wide expanse of lawn dotted by centuries-old trees, and up to the house itself—a 19th Century renovation of a Tudor mansion.  The brick façade glows red in the summer sunshine, accented by the glimmer of glass in the windows.  The roof is garnished with so many chimneys of twisting brick-work that it looks like a birthday cake.

How you enter The Manor depends on who you are.  Nobility, family friends and relatives, as well as the family doctor, lawyer and vicar all enter by walking up the great stone steps to the massive oak door, to be greeted by the butler.

Tradesmen, deliveries, servants and prospective servants follow a track around the side of the building and into a brick-walled courtyard, where they will knock on the kitchen door and admitted by Harry, the hall boy, or some other lowly person.

The commoner will then walk the brick floored corridor, catching a glimpse of the still room (where cordials and sweets are made), and perhaps stop in the doorway of the servants’ hall. 

This room is dominated by a long, scarred wooden table, though there is a cozy fireplace (unlit during this long, hot summer) and an upright piano at the far end.  Perhaps a newspaper has been left on the table, or an empty cup and saucer.  In the center of the table are two jugs—one of water and one of beer—for the servants to refresh themselves when needed.

The next room is the kitchen, and attached to it the scullery (where dishes are washed and birds are plucked).  These rooms are rarely quiet.  Janie, the kitchen maid, starts the servants’ breakfast before dawn, and Mollie, the scullery maid, often doesn’t finish washing up until after ten at night.  This room, with its heavy work table, two stoves, two sinks, and a myriad of pots, pans, bowls, tools and knives, provides the food for thirty household staff and the Edmonds family upstairs, who at present are only three, but when the boys are home and guests invited, can be as many as twenty expecting a seven-course dinner—not to mention cooked breakfast, elevensies, luncheon and tea.

Almost opposite the kitchen is the servants’ staircase—the back way to all upstairs rooms and, eventually, the attic rooms of the female servants.  And a little further down the hall is a short staircase that opens up into the entrance hall.

This is the first room at The Manor the upper class guest will see.  Two stories high, with a checkerboard marble floor and a sweeping carpeted staircase, the entrance hall was designed to impress.  It’s filled with light from the giant front windows, and with decorative palm trees that are all the rage in 1911.

Compared to the controlled chaos downstairs, this part of the house is silent.

Compared to the contrasting odors of shoe polish, coal dust, kedgeree and fresh bread in the servants’ corridor, the entrance hall and all of the upstairs rooms are scented by lavender, wood polish, silk and opulence.

To the left is Lady Edmonds’s sitting room—the perfect position to watch all the goings-on at The Manor.  Just past it, below the stairs, is the gun room, and then the dining room—flashing with silver and crystal.  Up the stairs, the hall is thickly carpeted and its length is decorated with the works of famous painters—van Dyck, Turner, Waterhouse.

At the far end of the hall, where the shadows start to creep in and you can just see the seam of the servants’ door, is Charlotte Edmonds’s bedroom.  Her bed is central, the wardrobe, with a tea gown on display, is just behind the door.  Her dressing table, with its intricately-framed mirror, stands next to the window, which looks out over the green of the lawn, the lake kept secret by the trees, and the Weald in the distance.


The Manor is fictional, of course.  But it’s based on reality.  Its location is that of a country manor turned school turned luxury apartments called Swaylands.  The grounds are similar to Swaylands, Basildon Park and Polesden Lacey in the south of England.  The entrance hall is a combination of Petworth’s marble hall and grand staircase.  The kitchen was inspired by the one at Petworth, and the rooms and paintings are reminiscent of all of these properties as well as Ham House and Blickling.  Most of these places can be enjoyed virtually by visiting the National Trust (https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/)

Thanks Katy! This was an awesome tour of the Manor!



About Katherine:

Katherine Longshore grew up on the northern California coast. At university, she created her own major in Cross-Cultural Studies and Communications, planning to travel and write. Forever. Four years, six continents and countless pairs of shoes later, she went to England for two weeks, stayed five years and discovered history. She now lives in California with her husband, two children and a sun-worshiping dog.






Giveaway Details:

5 Signed finished copies of MANOR OF SECRETS US Only
a Rafflecopter giveaway


Here’s the Tour Schedule!

Week One:
1/27/2014- Fiktshun- Guest Post
1/28/2014- Two Chicks on Books- Guest Post
1/29/2014- Good Books and Good Wine- Review
1/30/2014- Hobbitsies- Review
1/31/2014- Magical Urban Fantasy Reads- Interview

Week Two:
2/3/2014- A Glass Of Wine- Guest Post
2/4/2014- Mundie Moms- Interview & Review
2/5/2014- Read My Breath Away- Guest Post
2/6/2014- Page Turners- Review
2/7/2014- Tales of a Ravenous Reader- Guest Post

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Monday, January 27, 2014

Blog Tour- CRUEL BEAUTY and a Giveaway!!!!


I am so excited to have Rosamund Hodge here today to share her inspiration behind CRUEL BEAUTY! I freaking loved this book and the different take on the Beauty and the Beast story! I know it's early into 2014 but I can definitely say this will make my top 10 of 2014 list! Make sure to enter the giveaway below for a copy of the book!

Haven't heard of CRUEL BEAUTY? Check it out!

CRUEL BEAUTY
Author: Rosamund Hodge
Release Date: January 28, 2014
Pages: 352
Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Graceling meets Beauty and the Beast in this sweeping fantasy about one girl's journey to fulfill her destiny and the monster who gets in her way-by stealing her heart.

Based on the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Cruel Beauty is a dazzling love story about our deepest desires and their power to change our destiny.

Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she's ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle-a shifting maze of magical rooms-enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex's secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

Now on to the post!

You know this story, right? It’s Beauty and the Beast, the Tale As Old As Time. For the sake of her father, a girl goes to live with a monstrous beast at his mysterious house, where he asks her to marry him every night . . . and only after she agrees, does she find that he’s a beautiful prince.


It’s also Bluebeard. A girl marries a strange, charming gentleman who takes her to his beautiful mansion . . . where she discovers that her new husband is actually a monster who keeps his murdered wives in a closet.


It’s also East of the Sun, West of the Moon. For the sake of her family, a girl marries a polar bear, and she goes to his strange and beautiful palace . . . where she discovers that he is actually a prince under a curse, and to free him she has to journey all the way to the palace of the trolls.

It’s also the myth of Cupid and Psyche. For the sake of her kingdom, a princess is sacrificed to a “monster” . . . but instead of being eaten, she’s taken to a beautiful palace, where her husband visits her in the darkness every night. When she finally sees him, she discovers he’s really Cupid, the god of love, and to be with him forever she has to complete a series of impossible tasks, and journey all the way to the Underworld.

And that’s not even getting into more obscure variations like The Singing, Springing Lark or The Three Sisters Who Married the Devil.

Once you start reading a fairy tale beyond the Standard Picture Book Version (which is usually a Grimm/Perrault hybrid with the ickiest parts removed), you find that every story is endlessly refracted in a million variations. And when a story becomes so multitudinous, it takes on a life of its own. It’s like a giant sea serpent moving silently beneath the water—you might see only a few fins break the surface, but you know there’s something vast and living underneath.

It’s those connections, that sense of secret logic underneath, that drive me to write myth and fairy tale retellings.

Why did I write a Beauty and the Beast retelling, and why did I combine it with Greek mythology? Because I realized that all these stories were the same story. And once I had seen the connection between them, I couldn’t look away. I felt like there was another story, a “real” story lurking beneath all these variations. And I had to see if I could write it.

So I did.  

Thanks Rosamund! I really loved this post! I had no idea there were so many different variations of the story!



About Rosamund:

Rosamund Hodge grew up as a homeschooler in Los Angeles, where she spent her time reading everything she could lay hands on, but especially fantasy and mythology. She got a BA in English from the University of Dallas and an MSt in Medieval English from Oxford, and she now lives in Seattle with seven toy cats and a plush Cthulhu. Visit her on the web at http://www.rosamundhodge.net/







Giveaway Details:

1 ARC of CRUEL BEAUTY US Only
a Rafflecopter giveaway


Here’s the Tour Schedule!

1/27/2014- Paranormal Book ClubReview
1/27/2014- Two Chicks on BooksGuest Post
1/28/2014- Imaginary ReadsReview
1/29/2014- Magical Urban Fantasy ReadsReview
1/29/2014- FiktshunGuest Post
1/30/2014- Bewitched BookwormsReview
1/31/2014- Some Like it Paranormal- Review
1/31/2014- Parajunkee- Interview

Friday, January 17, 2014

Blog Tour- LANDRY PARK Excerpt and a Giveaway!


I am so excited to have Bethany Hagen here today to share an excerpt from David Dana's POV! I freaking loved Landry Park! I know it's early into 2014 but I can definitely say this will make my top 10 of 2014 list! Make sure to enter the giveaway below for a copy of the book!

Haven't heard of LANDRY PARK? Check it out!

Landry Park
Bethany Hagen
Hardcover: 384 Pages
Publisher: Dial (Penguin)
ISBN: 978-0803739482

In a fragmented future United States ruled by the lavish gentry, seventeen-year-old Madeline Landry dreams of going to the university. Unfortunately, gentry decorum and her domineering father won't allow that. Madeline must marry, like a good Landry woman, and run the family estate. But her world is turned upside down when she discovers the devastating consequences her lifestyle is having on those less fortunate. As Madeline begins to question everything she has ever learned, she finds herself increasingly drawn to handsome, beguiling David Dana. Soon, rumors of war and rebellion start to spread, and Madeline finds herself and David at the center of it all. Ultimately, she must make a choice between duty - her family and the estate she loves dearly - and desire.

Now on to the excerpt

From Bethany- When I'm working on a project, I tend to crawl into a mental cave that's filled with music and movies and books and research, and then live in that cave until my clothes are all ragged and I can't remember what the sun feels like.  (This is only partly metaphorical.)  And in my mental cave are scenes and ideas and conceptualizations of other characters, because I try to be conscious at all times that each character has their own journey, their own arc.  Each character considers himself or herself to be the hero of their own story.  And no one more so than David Dana, the son of a decorated naval commander and new arrival to Kansas City.  David has a secret, one he can't share with anybody, and it weighs on him constantly.  But Madeline Landry is the first person he meets that he feels might understand.  This scene is a scene of their very first meeting at Wilder House, the location of a gentry girl's debut and also of a mysterious attack on a gentry girl named Cara Westoff.  It's this attack that sets off the action of the novel.

The plane from Atlanta was predictably delayed.  An ice storm over the Midwest, they said.  When he disembarked from the plane and climbed gratefully into the sleek black car that waited for him, David had half a mind to go straight to the penthouse his mother had rented and skip the debut he'd been solicitously invited to.  But after a crisp glass of gin, he decided to go.  He always liked a good party, especially one with lots of girls and dancing.  It didn't matter that he didn't know anybody yet; he found that more often than not mysterious, well-dressed men never lacked for dance partners.

The house was smaller than he expected, and no footman or butler welcomed him at the door...doubtless all the servants were busy with the crowded bustle of the debut.  He could hear the laughter and clinking glasses and lilting violins all the way from the front steps, which was probably a testament to how small the house was, not the number of guests.  God, this place is provincial, he thought, pausing to light a cigarette before he went inside.  Why his mother wanted to move back here was beyond him, especially when all their memories of Father were back in Georgia.  He'd been dead only a few months and already Mother seemed to have completely forgotten him.

A scowling grief accompanied thoughts of his father's death, a mixture of pain and confusion and anger.  His father had always been distant and reserved, his brief demonstrations of affection laced with a sense of duty, as if each pat on the head or each shake of the hand before dinner satisfied some internal quota he had created for himself.  But despite the distance, his father had been a fixed point in the constellation of David's life, and without him there, unmoving and unwavering, David felt daily life almost impossible to navigate.  As if the things he did in the shadows would now pull him under, and David Dana, handsome son of the gentry, would cease to exist, and he'd become someone else entirely.  The thought terrified him.  Being subsumed by anything--love, work, war, a cause--it was the deepest fear he had.  Maybe that's why he clung so tenaciously to this life of parties and booze and flirting.  It was an elaborate life raft.

His thoughts were interrupted by soft and hurried footsteps.  He looked up to see an unfamiliar girl, a year or two younger than him, rushing into the foyer.  Her silk and lace gown swished and rustled as she moved, and red hair--red as blood--spilled out from a braided crown around her head, framing her face rather attractively.  She was pretty, although thin and pale in a way that suggested unhealth, like there was a blood-spattered handkerchief tucked away in her dress somewhere.  He watched her ascend the staircase, admiring the elegant lines of her waist as she walked, when she stopped.  He heard it too--cars.  Constables.  

Something had happened.

The constables climbed out of their cars, talking in their clipped, prejudiced tones.  Their automatic suspicion of the Rootless was not what surprised him--it was the way the girl turned, listened, her face pulling tight with doubt--that made him wonder.  He'd meant to let her pass by, to remain unnoticed by this new city for a while longer, but now he was intrigued.  Choosing his words carefully--he was very used to doing this, to playing the part he'd created for himself all those years ago--he said:

"Normally these debuts are terribly boring, so I make a point of arriving late, but I guess this time I missed all the excitement." 






Thanks Bethany! Love David :D



About Bethany:

Librarian by day, Bethany Hagen is the author of the forthcoming LANDRY PARK, set to be released from Dial February 4th, 2014. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and two children.




Giveaway Details:

The giveaway is for one finished copy, bookmarks, & stickers. US ONLY.
a Rafflecopter giveaway


Here’s the Tour Schedule!

Monday, January 13, 2014- Hazel @ Stay Bookish- Review
Tuesday, January 14, 2014- Inky @ Bookhaven Extraordinaire- Review
Wednesday, January 15, 2014- Stacee @ Adventures of a Book Junkie- Interview
Friday, January 17, 2014- Jaime @ Two Chicks on Books- Guest Post
Monday, January 20, 2014- Johanna @ Challenging Reads- Review
Tuesday, January 21, 2014- Liza @ Reading with ABC- Guest Post
Wednesday, January 22, 2014- Zoe @ The Infinite To-Read Shelf- Interview
Thursday, January 23, 2014- Giselle @ Book Nerd Canada- Review
Friday, January 24, 2014- Scott @ Scott Reads It!- Guest Post
Monday, January 27, 2014- Fahima @ I Read, Ergo I Write- Interview
Tuesday, January 28, 2014- Alyssa @ The Eater of Books!- Review
Wednesday, January 29, 2014- Emily @ Book Jems- Guest Post
Thursday, January 30, 2014- Taherah @ Books As You Know It- Interview
Friday, January 31, 2014- Jessi @ Novel Heartbeat- Review