Book Blitz- BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT

I am so excited to take part in the book blitz for BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT! I am a huge Alice in Wonderland fan and I can't wait to read these retellings!

Haven't heard of BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT? Check it out and look at that gorgeous animated cover!

Title: BEWARE THE LITTLE WHITE RABBIT

Contributing Authors: Charlotte Bennardo, C. Lee McKenzie, David Turnbull, Christine Norris, Jacqueline Horsfall, Medeia Sharif, Laura Lascarso, Tom Luke, Jessica Bayliss, Crystal Schubert, Holly Odell, Jennifer Moore, and Liam Hogan
Edited By: Shannon Delany and Judith Graves

Pub. Date: April 14, 2015

Publisher: Leap Books, LLC.

Find it: Amazon | Goodreads

An Alice-in-Wonderland inspired anthology.Curiosity often leads to trouble...

Thirteen powerful voices in young adult fiction invite you to journey into startling new Wonderlands in this nod to the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s timeless character, ALICE. 

Mystery. Madness. Mayhem. Each story in this collection will intrigue, bewitch, and enchant. Through rich historicals, castles and keeps, wild wormholes, secret workshops, deadly plagues, and gritty urban explorations, we present new tales of Alice and her white rabbit. 

Whether an intrepid reporter, a would-be car thief, or the last human in a world ruled by machines, at the heart of each story Alice is a girl discovering who she really is in worlds that never fail to surprise.

What wonders await, oh curious reader? Leap down the rabbit hole and discover the truth...

Check out the book trailer!

Excerpt

“There came a crack like thunder.

A rabbit hole, launched from its orbital warren, streaked down through the clouds. It hung in the air like a frozen fork of lightning. Beneath the helmet that Hatter had made for her, Alice felt the root ends of her hair tingle from the electrical change that accompanied its arrival. What appeared to be a stuffed white rabbit tumbled earthward. Payload delivered, the hole rapidly lost its integrity and dissolved into a glimmering fragment that dissipated on the wind.

Alice crouched low amongst the ruins as the rabbit sniffed the air, internal sensors trying to get a fix on her location. She clutched her vorpal sword. The pistons on the rabbit’s spring-loaded flanks gave a venomous hiss as it launched itself into a powerful leap.”

~ Alice, Last of the Beating Hearts by David Turnbull

About the authors:

Leap Books will be featuring each author on their blog throughout the month - http://leapbks.blogspot.ca/

Blog Tour- GRIM Anthology and a Giveaway!

I am so excited to take part in the blog tour for the GRIM Anthology! I love fairy tale retellings and the 3 stories that I am covering today are all really good! I have 3 mini reviews for you and also I'm going to talk about how they comepare to the originals! Make sure to enter the giveaway below for a Harlequin Teen Prize Pack that includes GRIM and other great Harlequin Teen Books!
Haven't heard of GRIM? Check it out!

Title: GRIM

Author: Multiple

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Pages: 480

Pub. Date: February 25, 2014

Goodreads|Amazon | Barnes & Nobles | Indiebound | Book Depository

Inspired by classic fairy tales, but with a dark and sinister twist, Grim contains short stories from some of the best voices in young adult literature today:

Kimberly Derting | Sonia Gensler | Tessa Gratton | Claudia Gray | Rachel Hawkins | Amanda Hocking | Ellen Hopkins| Shaun David Hutchinson  | Julie Kagawa | Malinda Lo | Myra McEntire |Saundra Mitchell | Jackson Pearce | Sarah Rees Brennan | Jon Skovron | Jeri Smith-Ready

Edited by Christine Johnson

Short Stories

1.       The Key by Rachel Hawkins

2.     Figment by Jeri-Smith Ready

3.     The Twelfth Girl by Malinda Lo

4.    The Raven Princess by Jon Skovron

5.     Thinner Than Water by Saundra Mitchell

6.    Before The Rose Bloomed: A Retelling of the Snow Queen by Ellen Hopkins

7.     Beast / Beast by Tessa Gratton

8.    The Brothers Piggett by Julia Kagawa

9.     UnTethered by Sonia Gensler

10. Better by Shaun David Hutchinson

11.    Light It Up by Kimberly Derting

12.  Sharper Than A Serpent's Tongue by Christine Johnson

13.  A Real Boy by Claudia Gray

14. Skin Trade by Myra McEntire

15.  Beauty and the Chad by Sarah Rees Brennan

16. The Pink: A Grimm Story by Amanda Hocking

17.  Sell it Out by Jackson Pearce

Now on to the reviews I'll talk about which retellings they are in my comparison after the reviews!

THE KEY was what I expected from Rachel Hawkins. A good story although I had a hard time pinning down the retelling I knew what it was supposed to be but it was so short it was hard to nail it down. I always like her writing. The only complaint I have is that it was way too short I wanted more. Rating: Liked!

You put something of Jeri Smith-Ready's in my hands and I will DEVOUR it! Just as I did with FIGMENT. This is another that I had a hard time figuring out the retelling but whatever I didn't really care what it was because it was AWESOME!!!! I adored Eli and "Fig" and it totally made me cry. Rating: OBSESSED!!!!!!

THE TWELFTH GIRL....Now this one I knew right away what it was and I loved the modern update Malinda did! It reminded me of the original with a really nice twist. I loved the darkness she brought into this tale and I really wanted to read more. If Malinda wrote a whole story about this I would snatch it up right away! This is the first book by Malinda I've read and she's an amazing writer I plan on picking up all of her books now! Rating: LOVED


Ok so let me tell you a little secret. I love Fairy Tales! Yeah the ones adapted for Disney are cool but I love the originals much more! I loved the darkness and the fear they instilled in children because they weren't the happily ever after tales that as a child we all wanted to be true. The originals were told to scare kids but they were rooted in real life. Children disappeared, men married women to turn around and kill them, and sometimes people just had awesome luck to only have it fail after a year or so. That's what I love about these they're not sugar coated HEA's. The authors in this antho especially Hawkins and Lo brought the darkness and embraced it. 

Hawkins story THE KEY was roughly based off of Bluebeard and it was really good! I wanted to have more of Skye though; his motives were unclear and I didn't understand how or why he was the way he was. I did want more though the ending was very open ended. 

Lo's THE TWELFTH GIRL was The Twelve Dancing Princesses with a modern update that I loved! She went way darker than the original and I loved the twist I also wanted more of this! And I loved that the "castle" was a dorm in an upscale prep school!

Jeri Smith-Ready's was the hardest to nail down but I mean it had a cat wearing boots so maybe a take on Puss in Boots? But he/it was also someone who inspired people so I came to think of him/it as a muse. So maybe Puss in Boots with a bit of the 9 sisters mixed in. Regardless I freaking loved it!!

Giveaway Details:

Contest Info:  

Each tour stop is offering up a copy of GRIM, and one winner will receive a fantastic Grand Prize Package including the following Harlequin Teen titles: 2 copies of GRIM, a copy of WHITE HOT KISS by Jennifer Armentrout, THE SECRET DIAMOND SISTERS by Michelle Madow, THE QUEEN’S CHOICE by Cayla Kluver and an ARC of  LET’S GET LOST by Adi Alsaid.

Please enter via the Rafflecopter form. Giveaway is open to US/Canada and ends March 7th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule

Week One:

Monday, February 17th - Harlequin Paranormal Blog

Tuesday, February 18th - Stories 1, 2 and 3 - Two Chicks on Books

Wednesday, February 19th - Stories 4, 5 and 6 - Book and A Latte

Friday, February 21st - Stories 7, 8 and 9 - Fiction Freak

Week Two:

Monday, February 24th - Stories 10, 11 and 12 - Mundie Moms

Wednesday, February 26th -  Stories 13, 14 and 15 - Bumbles and Fairytales

Friday, February 28th -  Stories 16 and 17 - Fiktshun

For more info about the guest posts you can direct your readers to the Tour Page

Tour Hosted by

Ooh there's a trailer now check it out!!!

Authors Are Rockstars- Heather Brewer is my Rockstar and check out her Giveaway!

I am so happy to be hosting Heather Brewer today she is the fantastic author of the Slayer Chronicles, the Vladimir Tod Chronicles and also the High Fantasy series the Legacy of Tril which is my personal favorite! Book 2 can't come fast enough!

Why is Heather a rockstar? Why not is the question! She always talks to her fans (they call her Auntie Heather), has awesome giveaways and makes the funniest Vlogs! She also puts up with my constant rambling/complaining about Trill and when book 2 is coming out.

Ok so I'm turning this over to Heather to talk about why she thinks authors are Rockstars!

Authors are rockstars.

I've heard that quite a bit in recent years, Minions. And I've come to really appreciate those rockstar moments. Nothing gets me through a day filled with cat boxes, dust bunnies, and deadlines like the memory of walking into a school gym full of screaming teenagers. Nothing can push away a low self-esteem day like the happy recalling of being asked to autograph a fan's book...or baby (which I'm super proud to admit totally happened). In fact, take away those stardom moments and an author's life can be pretty lonely. Mostly, we stay at home (preferably in jammie pants), and write. It's an existence full of solitude...not that solitude is a bad thing.

But being alone can sometimes mean that we authors get lonely, as any person would. And when we do, we reach out through various means (I loves me some Twitter) to touch someone else, to make a connection, to do something to dispel the loneliness that has befallen us. When I reach out, I largely reach out to my Minions. You guys get me. You understand who I am and what I'm about. And when I need a shoulder, you're always happy to lean over and offer me one. But today I want to talk about the other people that I can count on. Today I want to talk about my fellow YA authors.

You see, I was a lonely child growing up. Never mind that I had four siblings and too many cousins to count, all within about a fifty mile radius. I was lonely. And I was bullied. And I was convinced that I was entirely unlikeable.

Sometimes I am still convinced that I am unlikeable. But that's okay. Because during those moments of loneliness, of low self-esteem, I know that I can pull a book from my bookshelf and lose myself in another world, and that in that journey to another place, I will come to understand a special place in another author's mind. And through that, we will bond. I may never meet them. We may never speak in person or tweet back and forth, but I know that we share a connection. We share a story, and that brings me out of my lonely place and back to thinking that maybe I am not so unlikeable after all. And when I do that--when I read a book and feel a connection with its author--I realize that I am not just an author. I am a reader. I am a fan. And I am not alone.

When I go to events that I am not presenting at, and I see the author walk into the room, I grin. I'm so excited to meet them, so thrilled to know that I will soon have my book autographed by them. It's a magical moment, and I love that feeling. When I meet an author that I truly admire, it makes me feel less lonely in this big, wide world. It makes me feel less like a freak and more like an awesome person--a person who shares a secret with an author, with a rockstar.

Because, yeah, authors are rockstars. But not because of the screaming teens who await their arrival. Not because of the autographs and praise and movies on the big screen. Authors are rockstars because of how they make you feel when you're feeling so unlikeable.

At least, that's what they are to me.

About Heather:

Heather Brewer was not your typical teen growing up. She wore black, danced under full moons and devoured every book in sight.

She hasn’t changed much.

Today, Heather can be found wandering cemeteries, lounging on her coffin couch, devouring every book in sight, and attending renaissance faire in costume (and in character). 

When Heather's not writing, dressing up, or reading, she's hanging out with her 

Minions, whom she adores right down to their lil black hearts.

Heather is the author of The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, The Slayer Chronicles, and The Legacy of Tril series. She's penned several short stories, consumes entirely too much caffeine, and will not stop until she has achieved world domination in the name of her Minion Horde.

Find Her

Website/Blog/Twitter/Facebook/Goodreads

Also check out Heather's Blog she has an EPIC Giveaway going on right now! And I have a Giveaway for an ARC of Third Strike! Simply comment below with your email address and why you'd like the book and you'll be entered! US Only ends September 6th!

Heather's Books!