August "New Adult" Challenge Reviews — Link Them Up Here!

Participants in my "New Adult" reading challenge: if you have reviews from August, here's your chance to link them up. And everyone else: if you are interested in joining the challenge, it's not too late! Please see the details here. The more the merrier :)

Also, author Jessica Park stopped by the blog this month, so be sure to check out my interview with her! (The winners for the giveaway have already been drawn.)

Kiss, Marry, Kill: Jane Austen Good Guys

Here's how it works: you take a book, choose 3 guy characters from the book, and then the other person has to pick one to kiss, one to marry, and one to kill.

It's been a while since a Jane Austen–themed Kiss, Marry, Kill post, but what better time than now, when Misty at The Book Rat is hosting Austen in August? We've done a KMK for the Jane Austen Bad Boys, so now it's time for the flip side: the good guys who end up getting the girl!

Okay, I can't include all of them in here, but these three seem to be a lot of readers' favourites...

1.) Fitzwilliam Darcy

2.) Captain Frederick Wentworth

3.) George Knightley

So...who do you kiss, who do you marry, and who do you kill? *waits for the groans of indecision* :D

And as always, if you'd like to do your own, feel free to mention it in the comments or leave a link to your post there :)

Waiting on Wednesday: Amber House and Maid of Secrets

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and features books that we just can't wait to get our hands on!

Amber House by Kelly Moore, Tucker Reed, and Larkin Reed

"'I was sixteen the first time my grandmother died . . .'

Sarah Parsons has never seen Amber House, the grand Maryland estate that's been in her family for three centuries. She's never walked its hedge maze nor found its secret chambers; she's never glimpsed the shades that haunt it, nor hunted for lost diamonds in its walls.

But all of that is about to change. After her grandmother passes away, Sarah and her friend Jackson decide to search for the diamonds--and the house comes alive. She discovers that she can see visions of the house's past, like the eighteenth-century sea captain who hid the jewels, or the glamorous great-grandmother driven mad by grief. She grows closer to both Jackson and a young man named Richard Hathaway, whose family histories are each deeply entwined with her own. But when the visions start to threaten the person she holds most dear, Sarah must do everything she can to get to the bottom of the house's secrets, and stop the course of history before it is cemented forever." (from Goodreads)

I'm always up for a good Gothic-mystery-romance kind of read! I'm a little leery about Sarah's visions, but it'll depend a lot on how they're portrayed and incorporated into the rest of the story. The maze element sounds fantastic (so much potential for creepy losing-oneself-inside-it scenes!) and I like that it's given a strong presence in the cover. 

Maid of Secrets by Jennifer McGowan

"Seventeen-year-old Meg Fellowes is a wry, resourceful thief forced to join an elite group of female spies in Queen Elizabeth’s Court. There she must solve a murder, save the Crown, and resist the one thing that will become her greatest freedom–and her deadliest peril.

For Meg and her fellow spies are not alone in their pursuit of the murderer who stalks Windsor Castle.

A young, mysterious Spanish courtier, Count Rafe de Martine, appears at every turn in the dark and scandal-filled corridors of the Queen’s summer palace. And though secrets and danger are Meg’s stock-in-trade, she’s never bargained on falling in love…" (from Goodreads)

Is it just me, or does the girl on the cover have the creepiest expression on her face? Definitely gives the impression that she could kill someone in their sleep. Which makes sense, I guess, with all the thieving, spying, and murdering going on here... I'm hoping this book is something like Y.S. Lee's historical mysteries, because I'd love another series like that!


 

The Book Lode (6)

There are quite a few memes to choose from now for showing the books we've gotten recently, so I thought to be fair I'd link my posts up to a different meme each month. I'm grouping the posts under the name "The Book Lode," and this month I'm linking up to Mailbox Monday. Credit for this meme goes to Marcia from Hooked by a Book, and the meme is on "tour" with a different blog each month hosting it. For August, it's 5 Minutes For Books.

 
For review:

Ten Girls to Watch by Charity Shumway (adult)
Seeing Red by Douglas Nicholas (adult)
Secret Letters by Leah Scheier
Perfect Escape by Jennifer Brown
The Last Princess by Galaxy Craze
The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse

Thanks very much to Atria Books, Hachette Book Group Canada and Hachette Children's Books UK!

Won:

Crewel by Gennifer Albin — thanks very much to Armchair BEA and Macmillan Children's!

Bought:

Something Like Normal by Trish Doller
A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee
This Rough Magic, Touch Not the Cat, Stormy Petrel, and A Walk in Wolf Wood by Mary Stewart (adult)
Nocturne by Syrie James (adult)

Ward Against Death giveaway winner!

The winner of the Ward Against Death e-book is...

                                          ...Ashley at Book Labyrinth! 

Congrats, Ashley! The author should be e-mailing you shortly.

"New Adult" Niche: Interview with Jessica Park (and E-book Giveaway!)

I'm happy to welcome Jessica Park, author of the New Adult novel Flat-Out Love, to the blog today for an interview! You can read my review of Flat-Out Love here.


First, a bit about the book and the author:

"Something is seriously off in the Watkins home. And Julie Seagle, college freshman, small-town Ohio transplant, and the newest resident of this Boston house, is determined to get to the bottom of it.

When Julie's off-campus housing falls through, her mother's old college roommate, Erin Watkins, invites her to move in. The parents, Erin and Roger, are welcoming, but emotionally distant and academically driven to eccentric extremes. The middle child, Matt, is an MIT tech geek with a sweet side ... and the social skills of a spool of USB cable. The youngest, Celeste, is a frighteningly bright but freakishly fastidious 13-year-old who hauls around a life-sized cardboard cutout of her oldest brother almost everywhere she goes.

And there's that oldest brother, Finn: funny, gorgeous, smart, sensitive, almost emotionally available. Geographically? Definitely unavailable. That's because Finn is traveling the world and surfacing only for random Facebook chats, e-mails, and status updates. Before long, through late-night exchanges of disembodied text, he begins to stir something tender and silly and maybe even a little bit sexy in Julie's suddenly lonesome soul.

To Julie, the emotionally scrambled members of the Watkins family add up to something that ... well ... doesn't quite add up. Not until she forces a buried secret to the surface, eliciting a dramatic confrontation that threatens to tear the fragile Watkins family apart, does she get her answer." (from Goodreads)

"Jessica Park is the author of the young adult novels FLAT-OUT LOVE and RELATIVELY FAMOUS; five Gourmet Girl mysteries (written as Jessica Conant-Park); and the e-shorts FACEBOOKING RICK SPRINGFIELD and WHAT THE KID SAYS (Parts 1 & 2). Jessica grew up in the Boston area and attended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. After spending four years in the frigid north, including suffering through one memorable Halloween blizzard, Jessica hightailed it back to the east coast. She now lives in (relatively balmy) New Hampshire with her husband, son, bananas dog named Fritzy, and two selfish cats. When not writing, Jessica indulges her healthy addictions to Facebook, Rick Springfield, and super-sweet coffee beverages." (from the author's website)

 And now for the questions...

1.) Unlike most books about someone's first year in college, Flat-Out Love doesn't involve dormitory or apartment life, but rather a homestay–style situation. What inspired you to go this less traditional route for Julie's college experience? How much do you think living arrangements affect a student's time in college?

Getting Julie into the Watkins household was integral to the story. She just had to become enmeshed enough in their lives to be able to see and feel what no one else could. Plus, I love that it gave her “real” time with Matt… Had they met outside of this situation, odd are that neither of them would have really been themselves around the other. Living together the way they did allowed so many walls to come down.

Living off-campus vs. living at the dorms has got to be a different experience in so many ways. You may still be in a parent’s house and therefore still under some degree of house rules… College is a pretty fun time to make your own rules! If you’re in an apartment off-campus, I think it’s a great opportunity to develop strong independence and responsibility while being able to escape some of the chaos of dormitory life. Dorms give you instant access to a social life, but it can be draining and hard to find anything resembling private time.

College is housing is always going to be a mixed bag, with good and bad aspects of all options. I can, however, guarantee you that you will eat some incredibly disgusting things for four years. True story: I used to microwave white rice with peas, ranch dressing, and curry powder from the salad bar at my college’s cafeteria. And I thought it was spectacular compared to what was offered to me at the potato bar. 

2.) The focus of Flat-Out Love isn't the classes Julie attends, but the time she spends with the Watkins family. Why did you choose to make this the central storyline? Which "New Adult" themes do you think this plot highlights?

Yes, her attending classes is the backdrop to the larger story. I wanted to do a strong romance but have that tied into other complicating issues with this damaged family. The complexities of the family’s history help to make the connections between the characters all the more powerful.

Making Julie eighteen and having left home for the first time was important in terms of how she would respond to the other characters. She’s an adult… sort of. But she’s also still a kid. She’s flawed and finding herself the way that most of us are at that age.

I don’t believe in “rules” for New Adult books… I ignored all of those when writing Flat-Out Love. :) But it covers romance, pain, angst, hurt, loss, hope. I think it’s got a good degree of guts, too, which is part of what readers have really responded to: this is not a light, superficial book, although there are some readers who have seen it that way. On the surface, one could boil it down to a superficial level, but it’s really a layered book. What you see is not what you get.

3.) What's been the most common reaction when you tell people you've written a "New Adult" novel? Have you ever had to defend your choice of publishing in this category?

Readers are thrilled to pieces to see so many New Adult books. There has been a ridiculously large gap in this market for reasons that I’ll never understand. It’s why no big publisher wanted Flat-Out Love; they said that a story about a college freshman would never sell. That thinking is incomprehensible to me and readers have shown that they can’t get enough of stories about characters in their late teens and twenties. Indie authors are proving those rejections by publishers wrong over and over, and finally we are starting to see pubs snag up some of these stories.

4.) You originally self-published Flat-Out Love. What were some of the obstacles you bumped into along the way, and how did you deal with them? 

I’m not sure that I encountered obstacles so much as I encountered exhausting work. I had no built-in audience so I was really marketing my book all on my own. It was not easy, but bloggers and readers were extremely generous in taking a chance on Flat-Out Love. Dealing with formatting, covers, and editing are also piles of work--and not always entirely successful--but I also liked being in control of those.

Trying to go to any of the major book conferences, like Romantic Times or BEA would be really challenging on my own, not to mention expensive. Now that Amazon Children’s Publishing is taking over, they’ll be able to send me to all the fun conferences that I’ve been dying to go to. 

5.) If you could pick one memory from your "New Adult" days to relive, which would it be and why?

Can I pick all of college? No? Well, I’m going to cheat a little bit and say that some of my favorite memories are grounded in the friendships that I made in college. I’m still incredibly close to my friend, Alexa, who I met during the first few days of freshman orientation. Friendships that you make in New Adult years can be unbelievably powerful and long lasting.

If you want one specific memory, I could tell you about a 2 a.m. trek across campus in sub-degree Minnesota temperatures that ended with… Well, no, never mind. Probably not an appropriate story.

Thanks so much for these thoughtful answers to my questions, Jessica!

Now for the giveaway... Jessica has generously offered up Smashwords coupon codes for Flat-Out Love! 

The rules:

- There will be 3 winners, who will each receive a coupon code for the Flat-Out Love e-book
- Entrants must be 16 years or older.
- Open internationally 
- One entry per person. But anyone who's officially signed up for my New Adult reading challenge gets an extra entry! (You must have already filled in this form, prior to the posting of this giveaway, in order to qualify. Please mention that you're a participant in your comment and leave the e-mail address you signed up with.)
- Following and tweeting are not necessary but always appreciated!
- Ends August 25, at 11:59 pm EST.
- Winners will be selected randomly.

To enter, please leave a comment with your e-mail address.

 

Flat-Out Love: A Panoramic Review

"Something is seriously off in the Watkins home. And Julie Seagle, college freshman, small-town Ohio transplant, and the newest resident of this Boston house, is determined to get to the bottom of it.

When Julie's off-campus housing falls through, her mother's old college roommate, Erin Watkins, invites her to move in. The parents, Erin and Roger, are welcoming, but emotionally distant and academically driven to eccentric extremes. The middle child, Matt, is an MIT tech geek with a sweet side ... and the social skills of a spool of USB cable. The youngest, Celeste, is a frighteningly bright but freakishly fastidious 13-year-old who hauls around a life-sized cardboard cutout of her oldest brother almost everywhere she goes.

And there's that oldest brother, Finn: funny, gorgeous, smart, sensitive, almost emotionally available. Geographically? Definitely unavailable. That's because Finn is traveling the world and surfacing only for random Facebook chats, e-mails, and status updates. Before long, through late-night exchanges of disembodied text, he begins to stir something tender and silly and maybe even a little bit sexy in Julie's suddenly lonesome soul.

To Julie, the emotionally scrambled members of the Watkins family add up to something that ... well ... doesn't quite add up. Not until she forces a buried secret to the surface, eliciting a dramatic confrontation that threatens to tear the fragile Watkins family apart, does she get her answer." (from Goodreads)

Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park

My reaction: 


Overall, this was a really cute read. About 60 pages in I guessed what the big secret was (big spoilers, highlight to read: it clicked into place for me when Julie mentions that "it's not going to kill him" about Finn, and Celeste reacts badly. I did sometimes second-guess myself but most of the time I figured Finn was actually Matt) but it was still enjoyable to read, especially with all the tension coming up to the final reveal. Even though I was in on the secret quite soon, it gives the story a fun Shakespearean-esque twist and keeps the momentum going, and I liked the burgeoning romance. The revelation itself, however, was unfortunately not as dramatic as I thought it would be, and felt a little too staged. I also wish we'd been given a bit more at the end, following the climactic scene, especially of Matt.
 
Julie makes herself present in the Watkins' lives very quickly, which I thought was kind of strange. I suspect she became involved with them not only because she needed a "family" during her first year at college, but also because she wanted to have control over something, and making someone else's life better would help her to feel good about herself. Celeste is a very unusual 13-year-old, and I don't know if I entirely get the explanation at the end for her behaviour. But it was nice to see Celeste's progression as she starts to stand on her own two feet, with Julie's help.
 
Once I got hooked into it partway through, I finished it pretty quickly, and it put me in a good mood.

Best aspect: the interactions, particularly between Julie and Matt. I liked seeing the slow, gradual shift in their relationship as she gets more comfortable with him; they're friends, but still engage in teasing, geeky flirtation. While it's not really my sense of humour and I didn't get some of the references, it's quirky. Matt turned out to have an attractive manly and romantic side to him (he's not geeky all the time!) and his character felt quite real.
 

If I could change something... I wish we got to see more of her classes and time spent with side characters like Dana, Seth and Jamie. We're told she and Dana are good friends but we hardly see any of their interactions, and none of these secondary characters become full-fledged individuals. Rather, the story is very much about Matt, Celeste and Julie.


I also thought the dialogue was not always that realistic or authentic. In particular, there are a couple of "soul-baring" confessions towards the end that seemed to go overboard, feeling too formulaic, like the author was giving the reader exactly what they wanted or expected. Plus, one of the conversations involves Matt, and I'm not sure a guy would really make himself that vulnerable.

The "New Adult" aspect:

Julie's a bit of an unusual freshman, and her experience is definitely a bit different than a traditional "first year at college" story. She's mature for her age, so her voice feels rather adult, but I still felt like I could relate to her and get inside her head. I thought a bit much was made of the fact that she loves learning/studying, especially as we don't see much of her courses. Indeed, the fact that Julie's a literature geek and Matt's a math geek seemed to be pointed out to the reader rather too obviously.

If you haven't read it: it's probably one of the better New Adult books I've read, although I thought the writing could use some editing to smooth it out and lessen the amount of "telling" vs. "showing". If you're looking for a fairly light contemporary New Adult read, and you don't mind a bit of predictability, you might want to check this one out.

If you have read it: how long did it take you to guess the secret?  

Quote: 

"You are a beautiful girl, and it doesn't really matter what you wear. I like the scarf on you, but take it off if you want. As long as you don't borrow your brother's T-shirts, you'll be stunning." Julie turned to Matt. "Don't think that bag strap is hiding your shirt from me. I can still read it." Today's T-shirt said: ME: like you, only better. "You're straight out of GQ, Matt."


"I do my best. ..."

Final verdict: 3.5 shooting stars. 
 

Disclaimer: I received this as an e-book for review from the author.

Note: This book contains some sexual content and mature language.

This book counts towards my goal for the "New Adult" reading challenge.

 

Kiss, Marry, Kill: the Enchanted Forest Chronicles

Here's how it works: you take a book, choose 3 guy characters from the book, and then the other person has to pick one to kiss, one to marry, and one to kill.

It's high time for another one of these! This time it's the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, and your choices are:

1.) Mendanbar

2.) Telemain

3.) Daystar

Who do you kiss, who do you marry, and who do you kill?

Top Ten Tuesday: Posts That Tell You Something About Me

This fabulous meme is hosted by The Broke and The Bookish, and this week's topic is blog posts that we'd like to share that show the reader something about us. It's been forever since I've taken part in this meme! And okay, I totally cheated here and gave you more than 10 since I grouped some of them together :D

1.) I started vlogging recently, and one of the vlogs I've done has been for Misty at The Book Rat's meme Book Chat, where I talked about under-appreciated/less well-known books that I recommend.

2.) A book has to really wow me to get 5 stars, but I gave that rating to Tabitha Suzuma's Forbidden. You can read the review here.

3.) Unfortunately, there's also the opposite end of that spectrum. One book that failed to impress me (getting a 2 star rating) was Sunshine by Robin McKinley. This review shows off my snarkier side!

3.) Last year I hosted the Read Outside Your Comfort Zone challenge, and one of the books I was really impressed with was Stephenie Meyer's The Host. I'm not normally much for sci-fi but I got totally sucked into this one.

4.) Earlier this year I did a series of posts called "Cross My Palm" where I talked about current/emerging trends in YA in various genres. It seemed to get quite a good response so I think I might repeat it next year!

6.) This "Rants & Raves" post of mine, "Yes, Self-Published Author, You DO Need An Editor!", tells you a little about how much I value good editing. 

7.) I have three typical review formats, the names based on a photography theme: "close-up," "panoramic" and "snapshot." Here's examples of each: my review of Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor,  my review of Picture the Dead by Adele Griffin, and my review of The Glass Demon by Helen Grant.

8.) I'm quite proud of my "YA Through the Ages" series, which I spent a good deal of time on researching and writing.

9.) It's no secret that psychology fascinates me. Check out my reviews from Psychtember last year if you feel the same (I think my review of Without Tess by Marcella Pixley is a nice example) and be sure to tune in this coming September for Psychtember 2012!

Also, on a related note, I'd love to get some questions from my readers for the event! Dr. Carolyn Kaufman, a clinical psychologist and author, will be here to answer questions about psychology and writing, so don't be shy — just fill out this form (it's anonymous, don't worry) and your question could be picked :)

10.) Here's an open letter to publishers I wrote about my desire for more New Adult books. A few months later I came up with the New Adult reading challenge, which I'm very pleased to see has been well-received!

I'm interested to know, are there any particular posts of mine that have jumped out at you guys?

July "New Adult" Challenge Reviews — Link Them Up Here!

Participants in my "New Adult" reading challenge: if you have reviews from July, here's your chance to link them up. And everyone else: if you are interested in joining the challenge, it's not too late! Please see the details here. The more the merrier :)

Also, if you missed it last month, you might want to check out my "New Adult" Niche interview with Melanie Card (and there's an e-book giveaway there too!).

Waiting on Wednesday: Legacy of the Clockwork Key and The Friday Society

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and features books that we just can't wait to get our hands on!

This time there's a steampunk theme:

Legacy of the Clockwork Key by Kristin Bailey

Goodreads' description:

"When a fire consumes Meg's home, killing her parents and destroying both her fortune and her future, all she has left is the tarnished pocket watch she rescued from the ashes. But this is no ordinary timepiece. The clock turns out to be a mechanical key-a key only Meg can use- that unlocks a series of deadly secrets and intricate clues that Meg has no choice but to follow. She has uncovered evidence of an elite secret society and a dangerous invention that some will stop at nothing to protect, and that Meg alone can destroy. Together with the handsome stable hand she barely knows but hopes she can trust, Meg will be swept into a hidden world of deception, betrayal, and revenge. The clockwork key has unlocked her destiny."

I haven't read that much steampunk and what I have read makes me think it's not really my kind of genre, but I'm hoping that might change depending on the story. Sounds like there are lots of secrets in this one (not to mention that handsome stablehand) and it seems like there isn't a heavy emphasis on the steampunk aspect, so perhaps it will help to ease me into the genre!

The Friday Society by Adrienne Kress

 

Goodreads' description:

"Be your own hero . . .

An action-packed tale of gowns, guys, guns—and the heroines who use them all.

Set in Edwardian London, The Friday Society follows the stories of three very intelligent and talented young women, all of whom are assistants to powerful men: Cora, lab assistant; Michiko, Japanese fight assistant; and Nellie, magician’s assistant. The three young women’s lives become inexorably intertwined after a chance meeting at a ball that ends with the discovery of a murdered mystery man.

It’s up to these three, in their own charming but bold way, to solve the murder—and the crimes they believe may be connected to it—without calling too much attention to themselves.

Told with Adrienne Kress’s sharp wit and a great deal of irreverence, this Steampunk whodunit introduces three unforgettable and very ladylike—well, relatively ladylike—heroines poised for more dangerous adventures."

This book just sounds like a whole lot of fun. The three main characters sound fantastic — love that they come from three such different backgrounds and educations — and then of course there's the murder mystery! The spunky cover is awesome, too.


What books are you waiting for? Also, have you been wowed by any steampunk YA you could recommend to me?