Monday YA Author Interview With Marie Landry

Where are you from?
I’m from a small-ish city in Ontario, Canada.

When and why did you begin writing?

I’ve been writing stories since I first learned to write. The stories were in me and I felt like I needed to put them on paper and share them with people. From a very young age, I knew this was what I wanted to do professionally.

What books have influenced your life most?
The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling and Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery. Besides being fantastically written, they just have such great messages about friendship, love, family, and doing good things in the world. 

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

Probably Nora Roberts. I’ve always said I wanted to be her when I grow up. She writes such great romance, and her books always have a lot of heart, and, again, great messages about family and love and friendship. 

What book are you reading now?

This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E Smith - I’m obsessed with contemporary YA and this book is so cute.

Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?

There are a few 2013 debut authors who really stand out to me - Jessica Sankiewicz (who also happens to be one of my best friends), Teri Brown, Jessica Verdi, Leila Howland, Lauren Graham, and Page Morgan. I think they’re all authors to watch, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with in the future.

Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

My favourite ‘adult’ author is Nora Roberts. As I mentioned before, I love that her books have a lot of heart. They’re usually centred on family and friends, and they all have a fantastic romance. They’re well written, the dialogue is always snappy, and the protagonist almost always has a fascinating occupation, which I love because it means I get to learn something new. I have several favourite authors who write young adult books - Sarah Dessen and Stephanie Perkins are the first two that come to mind. There’s just something special about their books - great writing paired with memorable situations and characters that stay with you.

What was the hardest part of writing your book?

A lot of the subject matter - Charlotte losing her mother and dealing with the aftermath - was hard to write because it was so emotional. I lost my dad when I was little, so I know the pain of losing a parent, plus I had just lost my Grama, who was one of my best friends, a year before writing Waiting for the Storm, so that pain was really fresh. It was difficult, but it was also cathartic.  

Have you been an avid reader your entire life? (since you could read)

Yes. I’ve always loved to read and my parents were always buying me books to feed my addiction.

What character in your books do you relate to most?

Probably Charlotte from Waiting for the Storm. She’s a bit uncertain and insecure, and I can relate to that. She wants what’s best for her family and she puts them first, and that’s something else we have in common - my family is everything to me.

Ok now some fun questions:


What is your favorite sport to watch and or play?

I don’t watch sports, but I love to swim and play basketball when I get the opportunity. 

Favorite Movie?
I have so many I could spend all day listing them! The first one that pops into my head is Runaway Bride. I never get enough of that movie.

Chocolate or Vanilla?
Chocolate

Puppy's or Kittens?
Puppies


Beach or Mountains?
Mountains 

If you could be a color, what color would you be?

Purple or blue


Favorite Dessert?
Ice cream 

If you could be a book character, what character would you be?

Anna from Anna and the French Kiss - I’d love to go to Paris and fall in love with a boy like Etienne St. Clair! ;-)

 

Waiting For The Storm

Marie Landry

 

 

 

Seventeen-year-old Charlotte O’Dell knows this summer is going to suck. Her mother just died, her sister hates her, and her dad has completely checked out. Fulfilling her mother’s final wish, the family heads to Angel Island for the summer to stay in a beach house her mother once loved.

After a year of being shut away taking care of her mother, Charlotte is numb and practically afraid of her own shadow; she hopes going to the island will give her the time and space she needs to begin healing, and an opportunity to bring her family back together. When she meets her mysterious neighbor, Ezra, it doesn’t take long for Charlotte to confess the issues she’s developed. Ezra begins giving Charlotte assignments to get over her fears, and although she accepts his tasks, all she really wants is to be with him. When she’s with Ezra, she’s able to forget the hollow ache in her heart and the fact that her family is falling apart. But Ezra has secrets…

Can Charlotte pull what’s left of her family together, mend her broken heart, and allow herself to fall for Ezra? Or is it all just a storm waiting to happen?

Super Six Sunday (3)

Super Six Sunday is an original bookish meme hosted at Bewitched Bookworms and inspired by “Top Ten Tuesday” from The Broke and The Bookish . You can see the weekly schedule of themes here.

Super 6 Books I’m Thankful I Took A Chance On

All of these surprised me, and most of them are now on my

"favorite books, would definitely re-read" list.

 

The very first review I posted  on this blog

was of Cinder. It is not very good, but if you are interested.....

My Review of Cinder

My Review of Aberrant

 

Please link me your Super Six Sunday (or another post) in the comments I would love to visit!

 

Stacking the Shelves (13) + Weekly Summary

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

 

Here are the books I bought/received this week.
As you can see, I went a little crazy at the library this week but they all look like great reads!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Library:

Time Between Us (Time Between Us #1) - Tamara Ireland Stone

This one was so good!

Just Like Fate - Cat Patrick & Suzanne Young

Unravel Me (Shatter Me #1) - Tahereh Mafi

Tarnish - Katherine Longshore

The Originals - Cat Patrick

All Our Yesterdays (All Our Yesterdays #1) - Cristin Terrill
Time After Time (Time Between Us #2) - Tamara Ireland Stone
Let It Snow - John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle
The Name Of The Star (Shades Of London #1) - Maureen Johnson
Wild Cards (Wild Cards #1) - Simone Elkeles

Won:

Nobody But Us - Kristin Hallbrook (PB) (*Signed*)

How To Love - Katie Cotugno (HC)

Gifted:

 Find Me (Find Me #1) - Romily Bernard(HC) (*Signed*)
I did an interview with Romily here.


Please feel free to leave links to your Stacking the Shelves in the comments below! I would love to visit.

Weekly Summary:

Super 6 Characters that I Want to Be
Monday YA Author Interview With Pauline C Harris
Top Ten Books I Would Recommend To Someone Who Loves Fairy Tale Retellings:
Reap Book Blitz + Giveaway
Waiting On Wednesday - After The End
Book Review - Crash Into You
Book Review - Run For The Roses Blog Tour Stop





 

Run For The Roses Review Book Tour

 

Run for the Roses

by Rachel Schieffelbein

Release Date: 11/2013

by Swoon Romance

Summary from Goodreads:

Abigail Conrad has spent her whole life training for one goal: to win the roses at the Arabian

Youth Nationals. She’s given up friends, a social life, and doesn’t have time to even think

about guys -- much less date!

Now that she’s headed off to college in the fall, it’s her last chance to be a Youth National

Champion, and she won’t let anything distract her from that dream.

Except maybe Chase, the older brother of Abigail's biggest rival. He’s charming, funny,

and possibly Abigail's biggest problem. How can she focus on riding when her mind keeps

wandering to Chase’s green eyes and confident smile?

With her dream on the line, Abigail had better learn to fight her growing attraction to Chase,

or she might end up losing the roses and the guy.

 

Review:

Run for the Roses is only 80 pages, so I wasn't going into it expecting to have much more than a short story with a quickly played out plot line.
Abigail Conrad dream is to win the Arabian Youth Nationals, and to accomplish that dream she has to give up everything friends, school dances, and pretty much any kind of social life not involving horses. As the time draws near to Nationals, she meets Chase and suddenly she is distracted and messing up in major ways. Soon she finds out that Chase is the older brother of her biggest rival Sydney. Uh-oh.

Abigail is a pretty fun character, who is pushed by her own self-resolve to follow her dream of winning Nationals. Because of the shortness of the book, you never really connect with Abigail in any way but her resolve to win Nationals. In this way, Abigail is an incredible character, not willing to let anything get in her way of winning.
You never learn anything about Chase, other than he is the older brother of her rival, he is VERY good looking, VERY rich, and extremely attracted to Abigail.

The romance between Chase and Abigail has an extreme case of insta-love, in about 60 pages they manage to date, fight, date, kiss...repeat.

The horse factor was interesting, I hadn't read another book like this one before which gave me a fresh take on the typical contemporary.

 I wish this book had been longer so that I could learn more about the characters and let the romance between Chase and Abigail mature more. Other than that, this is a quick, fun read.
3/5.

***GIVEAWAY***

1 - $10 iTunes Gift Card & ebook of Run For the Roses (INT)

3 – ebook of Run For the Roses (INT)

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway


About the Author
Rachel grew up in a tiny town in Minnesota. She still lives there, with her husband and
their four kids. She coaches high school speech and theater, rides Arabian horses, reads as
much as she can, and writes stories.
***Author Links***
http://rachelmarybean-writingonthewall.blogspot.com/
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7044030.Rachel_Schieffelbein
http://www.twitter.com/RMSchieffelbein
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rachel-Schieffelbein-author/495759520488755

Book Review: Crash Into You

Crash Into You (Pushing the Limits #3)

Katie McGarry

 

The girl with straight As, designer clothes and the perfect life-that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private-school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy parents and overbearing brothers...and she's just added two more to the list. One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker-a guy she has no business even talking to. But when the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind.

Isaiah has secrets, too. About where he lives, and how he really feels about Rachel. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks-no matter how angelic she might look.

But when their shared love of street racing puts both their lives in jeopardy, they have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

 

Crash into you is the companion/sequel to Pushing The Limits and Dare You To. In it you see both Noah, Echo, and Beth but unfortunately Ryan is not seen (although he is mentioned).

And Katie McGarry is just getting better!

 

I loved all of Katie McGarry's past books, and when I got approved for this one I literally jumped up and down and then sat down and read it in one sitting.

The story line was both similar and unique, comparing it to earlier books in the series. Isaiah is a "bad boy' covered with tattoos. Rachel is a "good girl" with the supposedly "perfect" home life with rich parents. Emphasis on the supposedly.

 

Comparing Rachel to Echo and Beth, she is my favorite girl in Katie's books so far. I love how she treated everyone fairly and although she had a bad first impression of Isaiah, she soon got over it to look to the inside and see that Isaiah is actually a really nice guy. Rachel feels like she is expected to be perfect in her home life, and a side effect of that is she deals with regular panic attacks, which after a hospital visit when she was young, she eventually hides from her family. Rachel deals with the pressure to be like her older sister that died from leukemia before she was born, and is expected to give speeches talking about Colleen which trigger the panic attacks. Rachel's twin Ethan soon finds out about the panic attacks but agrees to keep her secret for a while.

 

Isaiah is seriously amazing. He has this need to protect Rachel from the starting that is sorta Night In Shining Armor like. After having his heart broken by another girl that he had loved from the time he was young, he has been with many one night stands.

After meeting Rachel, you can see that Isaiah will do anything to keep her.

 

The relationship between them grows throughout the book, and eventually becomes a relationship where there is mutual love for one another. Their romance was really really beautiful.. And again my favorite relationship of all of the books in the past.

 

I loved seeing the characters grow, Isaiah getting better over his abandonment issues and Rachel with her panic attacks and family problems. The way that the characters dealt with their problems was both realistic and admirable.

The plot kept on going and didn't ever make me feel like I was wasting my time in reading it.  The ending is the most beautiful ending that I have read in a book in a while now....and there is absolutely no disappointment.

 This book seriously gave me the feels, with it being both romantic, exciting, and completely AMAZING!

I would definitely recommend/shove it in peoples hands to anyone who is a fan of Katie McGarry's past books (warning though, this one is so much better than the past two) and fans of Simone Elkeles.

There are a few characters in this book that I would love to have another story of, but I will have to deal with waiting for her next book (trigger crying here).

Now please excuse me as I go read the ending again :-)

4.5/5

The publisher provided an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was in no way compensated.

Waiting On Wednesday (10) After the End

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at http://breakingthespine.blogspot.com/, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is

After The End
Amy Plum
Expected publication: May 6th 2014 by Harper Children's

"She’s searching for answers to her past. They’re hunting her to save their future."

World War III has left the world ravaged by nuclear radiation. A lucky few escaped to the Alaskan wilderness. They've survived for the last thirty years by living off the land, being one with nature, and hiding from whoever else might still be out there.

At least, this is what Juneau has been told her entire life.

When Juneau returns from a hunting trip to discover that everyone in her clan has vanished, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries of their land for the very first time, she learns something horrifying: There never was a war. Cities were never destroyed. The world is intact. Everything was a lie.

Now Juneau is adrift in a modern-day world she never knew existed. But while she's trying to find a way to rescue her friends and family, someone else is looking for her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about the secrets of her past.

I am a huge fan of Amy Plum's other books, (although the last book in the Revenants trilogy disappointed me a little) and I absolutely can't wait for this next book!

Past works by Amy Plum:


Die For Me                                       Until I Die                              If I Should Die





 

Book Blitz: Reap + Giveaway

Reap</ o:p>

by Christina Channelle

Release Date: 10/11/13

Summary from Goodreads:

Foreign, or rather unfamiliar, would be the word I would use to describe how I felt.

Faintly, I could hear the glimmer of voices surrounding me in this dark haze, caressing my ears like skin against silk. I felt like I was in a cocoon of sorts, protectively enveloped, quietly drifting in some far-off place. I wanted to stay that way forever.

But we all know that what you want never really seems to happen in the real world.

Something’s not right in Mia’s head.

The first thing is that her name isn’t Mia. In fact, she has no clue what her name is—who she is. All that she knows is that she’s not like the ones who found her: Dante with his kind blue eyes, Amy with her child-like demeanor, James with his questioning gaze.

And Briggs.

The one she cannot decipher no matter how hard she tries.

As Mia tries to fit in with these people, a strange occurrence is amidst outside. And as she finally remembers who she is …

Well, let’s just say that things get a little more complicated.

(YA Paranormal Romance Novella)

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Available from: (only $.99!)

    

 

About the Author

A dreamer, Christina Channelle holds two degrees in health sciences but has always had a passion for writing. You will find her reading other young adult novels, or typing up a new story on her computer. When not writing, Christina spends her free time at the movies, listening to music, or eating sushi. She's a reality TV junkie and has a close relationship with many characters on TV that have been a topic of many heated discussions among friends. She resides in Ontario, Canada.

Her next project is the YA Paranormal Romance, REAP, to be released October 11, 2013.

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Author Links:</ span>

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*GIVEAWAY*

3 - Ebooks of Reap with bookmark (INT)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Blitz hosted by: