Thursday 28 February 2013

Hot Books for March

The books that the UK publishers are bringing out in March to make us drool.
Tinder Press
Bloomsbury
Hidden
Templar Publishing
FerrymanSweet Shadows (Medusa Girls, #2)
Penguin
The Bunker Diary
 
Hodder Children's Books
 Girl of Nightmares (Anna, #2)Siege
 Walker Books
Hidden Among UsClockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)
Hodder and Stoughton
Requiem (Delirium, #3)
Oxford University Press
Waiting For Gonzo
Quercus
Drowning Instinct
 Pan Macmillan
Because It Is My Blood (Birthright, #2)
Egmont/Electric Monkey
Finding Cherokee Brown
Hot Key Books
The Quietness
 Indigo
Orion Children's Books
 Choc Lit
Simon and Schuster
Mira Ink
Strange Chemistry
Atom
 
Which ones are you looking forward to?
 

Being a judge for the Costa Book Awards by Matt Whyman

While attending the Hot Key Books/Templar Publishing blogger brunch, I managed to talk to Matt Whyman, who has a book called The Savages coming out with Hot Key Books later this year. While chatting, I discovered that he was a judge for this year's Costa Children's Book Award, so I bribed him with sweets and cupcakes to write me a post all about his experience. And voila! Here is it!
When the invitation arrived by email, asking whether I would like to be a judge for the 2012 Costa Children’s Book Prize category, just one thought came to mind. Naturally I wanted to do it. Who wouldn’t? I just worried that responding too quickly might seem a bit… keen.
I held out for about two minutes tops before hitting reply. I then spent the rest of the day feeling far too excited to carry on working. In my early twenties, living in a bedsit and working part time in a call centre so I could write, I looked upon the award, formerly known as the Whitbread before the sponsor switch, as the last word in modern British literature. Like the Booker, this annual prize served up the very best in books. It seemed a world away from my life at the time. I certainly never thought that one day I might join the panel that made the selection.
After the invite, everything went silent for some weeks. Every now and then, I’d check the email to be sure I hadn’t just imagined it. Looking back, before the first of the book boxes arrived, and continued to do so over a three month period, I realise it was just the calm before the storm. Now I’ll be honest with you here. I don’t read that much. I write every working day, and so the last thing I want to do at the end is pick up a book. Put it this way, if I cleaned windows for a living then I wouldn’t be thrilled if I returned home to find my wife had put the ladder out for me and a bucket of hot, soapy water. I love literature, I really do, but my reading tends to be restricted to the beach. On this occasion, however, I had to change my ways. I also didn’t look back. As soon as I started ploughing my way through the submissions, I found myself lost in countless different worlds and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I deliberately didn’t work on my own book during this time. As well as the coals to Newcastle thing, I’m a big believer in being true to your voice as a writer, which can be problematic when reading other people’s work.
The brief from the powers that be was very simple. Along with the author Marcus Sedgwick and Waterstones’ Sarah Clarke, we had to select the most enjoyable children’s book of the year. The stature of the author, the prettiness of the jacket or the hype surrounding the content, none of this mattered. It was simply a question of deciding what title clicked the most with us all.
In terms of the process, after all the individual list-making we each had to put forward our personal shortlists. This was tough. Killing your darlings always is, and required a ruthless streak. Finally, with the chosen books on the table we convened to hammer out a shortlist of four. At the meeting, we chewed over each book in turn, picking them apart in detail until we had our selection: The Seeing by Diana Hendry, Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner, What’s up with Jody Barton by Hayley Long and A Boy and a Bear in a Boat by Dave Sheldon. It was a good-natured affair, and our choice offered a fair representation of the diversity on offer for 2012. 
As for the winner, we were unanimous in choosing Maggot Moon. Every book on the shortlist deserved to be there, but for different reasons we felt that Sally Gardner had created a unique, striking and enchanting story. Above all, however, we agreed that it was the most enjoyable – not an easy thing to define by any means. If anything, it’s just a sense throughout the judging process that builds to a feeling and then a conviction. A different combination of judges might well have seen things in another light, but in a way it doesn’t matter. A prize of this stature serves to raise awareness of the richness and diversity in fiction for children and teenagers today, and also provoke discussion. In this view, every book’s a winner.
The Savages by Matt Whyman will be published by Hot Key Books in June.
Synopsis: Sasha Savage is in love with Jack Greenway - a handsome, charming, clever... vegetarian. Which would be acceptable if it weren't for the fact that Sasha's family are very much 'carnivorous', with strong views to boot....
Biography: Matt Whyman is a best selling author and agony uncle for Bliss Magazine and BBC Radio 1's The Surgery
To find out more about Matt Whyman:
 

Wednesday 27 February 2013

The Hanged Man Rises by Sarah Naughton

Pages - 235
Published by Simon and Schuster in February 2013
The boy sat on the end of the jetty, skimming oyster shells across the water. It was too choppy to get many bounces but occasionally a shell would strike the dredger, moored further out, with a satisfying clang.  He didn't even bother to prise open the next one before he threw it. The thought of slurping out its slick grey innards, still quivering, made him queasy. A person could get heartily sick of oysters, and Sammy often wishes his father had been a cattle drover or a cheesemonger. Anything but an oyster farmer.
Goodreads Summary
When their parents are killed in a fire, Titus Adams and his little sister Hannah are left to fend for themselves in the cruel and squalid slums of Victorian London. Taking shelter with his friend and saviour, Inspector Pilbury, Titus should feel safe. But though the inspector has just caught and hung a notorious child-murderer, the murders haven't stopped. Now everyone is a suspect, even the inspector himself, and unless Titus can find a way to end the killings, he will lose all that is dear to him.
For this evil cannot be contained, even by death.
******
The Hanged Man Rises is a rather dark tale that drags you into the rough and dangerous parts of Victorian London. A child killer is on the loose and everyone is scared. The first chapter was really rather scary. I struggled reading it as any mother would do. You feel chilled to the bone, by the events that unfold.
Titus and Hannah are brilliant characters. Titus is such a strong and brave boy and deal with the death of his parents and his new position as his sister’s guardian. He will do anything to protect her, even if it means hurting her.
The story continues in it dark tone all the way through, with the arrival of some rather sinister characters that will make your skin crawl. I enjoyed reading the parts with Lilly in, who is a young girl with the power to speak to ghosts. It was brilliant to see a medium represented as having real skills instead of a charlatan, which is often the case with Victorian novels.  The story is quite fast paced all the way through, culminating in a rather dramatic ending. Sometimes I got a little lost in the narrative and found myself rereading passages, as I didn’t always understand what was going on. On reading it at a slower pace, this probably wouldn’t be an issue.
This book is recommended for 11 years +. Personally I would suggest it to older readers or young ones with excellent reading skills as the writing is quite mature at times and the content is often quite dark.
On the whole, this is a very promising debut, representing the darker side of Victorian London.

 

Inspire Me with Sarah Naughton

Today, I am happy to welcome debut author Sarah Naughton onto the blog, to discuss what inspired her to write her historical teen book, The Hanged Man Rises.
Living in the country is pretty boring once you get past the age of nine.  Especially for a girl with zero interest in sport or other outdoor activities.  
With nothing better to do me and my friend Ellen would go on interminable walks down country lanes and on these walks, when the conversation ran out about Andrew Stowford (the only boy in the village not intimately-related to everyone else), we played a game called What If.  I probably don’t need to explain this game.  It went along the lines of: what if your best friend’s boyfriend told you he loved you: would you tell your best friend?  Or, what if your mum and Andrew Stowford were trapped in a burning building and you only had time to save one?
I’ve been playing it ever since.
Lots of things trigger the questions: documentaries, conversations, news stories.  What if that asteroid that just missed earth actually hit us?  What if they found fossilised human bones in a dinosaur’s stomach?  
I’m sure it’s where most writers begin.
The medical advances in the 18th century, particularly in anatomy, probably inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein.  Genetic engineering provided the chilling but wholly believable premise for Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’.  A planet running out of resources: Independence Day, reality TV gone mad: The Hunger Games.
Ok, I suppose I should admit that I’m a big fan of dystopian fiction.  But it works equally well with other genres: what if you lived in Elizabethan/Roman/Neolithic times?  What if a man got killed in a completely sealed room?  What if a billionaire sheik disguised as a doctor came to work at the hospital of a pretty young nurse?
They’re all good starting points (apart from possibly the billionaire sheik doctor in disguise).  Where you take them is the hard part.  There’s a dusty old folder lurking in the depths of my computer containing a stack of these premises which I haven’t managed to turn into stories.  I’ll go back to them one day.  What if the sheik met the dinosaur on the way to the hospital and the pretty nurse had to clone him using the DNA from a scrap of his half-digested flesh? (now that’s an idea…)
Though it didn’t feel like it when I was a kid, having an active imagination is a far more exciting and rewarding skill than being a hot shot at BMX stunts (unless you’re Andrew Stowford, in which case it’s just the Best Thing Ever).
So if you want to write, just be curious.  Ask yourself questions.  Chances are lots of people will have asked themselves the same questions before and written brilliant books exploring the answers, but one day you’ll hit upon something no-one has asked yet.  But you’d better be quick – what if I get there first?
The Hanged Man by Sarah Naughton is published on the 28th February by Simon and Schuster.
To find out more about Sarah:

Tuesday 26 February 2013

The Quietness by Alison Rattle

Pages - 278
Published in March by Hot Key Books
It was  a wet day. The rain had turned the roads to sludge. Everyone unlucky enough to be out on the streets hurried past Queenie, without glancing at the heap of fruit she'd polished to gleaming on her skirts. No matter how hard she shouted, 'PENNY A LOT, FINE RUSSETS!' or, 'EIGHT A PENNY, STUNNING PEARS!'
Goodreads Summary
When fifteen-year-old Queenie escapes from the squalid slums of nineteenth-century London, she has no idea about the dangers of the dark world she is about to become embroiled in. Initially thrilled at being taken on as a maid for the seemingly respectable Waters sisters, Queenie comes to realise that something is very wrong with the dozens of strangely silent babies being 'adopted' into the household.
Meanwhile, lonely and unloved sixteen-year-old Ellen is delighted when her handsome and charming young cousin Jacob is sent to live with her family. She thinks she has finally found a man to fall in love with and rely on, but when Jacob cruelly betrays her she finds herself once again at the mercy of her cold-hearted father. Soon the girls' lives become irrevocably entwined in this tension-filled drama.
********
Told from two perspectives in first and third person, this book portrays a very dark and realistic image of Victorian London. The two main characters, Queenie and Ellen’s are the complete opposite of each other and yet each suffers in their own way. The author takes both extremes and skilfully blends them together.
Queenie’s life is extremely hard. To have to fight for every morsel of food on a daily basis must have been indescribable. Yet she was loved. She came from a family that cared, even if they sometimes went off the rail. However, Queenie is oblivious to the love that surrounds her; she is too consumed by her need to escape poverty to see it.
On the other hand, Ellen has everything money could buy; however money can’t buy the thing you need most in life – love. The clinical coldness of her father sent shivers down my spine. He really was a boneless creature. His unhealthy interest in the workings of his daughter’s body was extremely weird. Ellen’s life was cold and lonely and I just wanted to hug her.
Queenie and Ellen are such wonderful characters, with strong convictions and lots of emotion. Through every sadness they suffered, you felt every bit of it through the author’s narrative. During the birth scene, I felt the strong emotions that bound the mother and child, an excellent example of the writer’s ability to portray realistic emotions through her words.
The story unravels delicately as we gradually learn more about the two girls. Surprises will occur naturally within the plot as you lose yourself in the story. The chapters are quite short and you find yourself reading the book very quickly, eager to find out what happens next to each character.
The descriptions of Victorian London are vivid, yet brutal and honest. The author has taken the historical information and breathed life into it, make it real and easy to imagine. I could easily see this book being televised.
I really loved this book, even though it did make me cry at the end. A stunning portrayal of hidden history that needs to be told.

Why Alison Rattle chose to write about baby farming.

During the Hot Key Books/ Templar Fiction blogger event, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to talk to Alison Rattle, debut author of The Quietness, which is published by Hot Key Books in March. When I discovered the topic of her novel, I was completely fascinated and asked Alison if she would be interested in writing a post about it. Alison kindly agreed and her is the resulting post telling us why she decided to write about baby farming.
A few years ago I was writing a proposal for a non-fiction book on amazing women – that is amazingly great or amazingly awful! I stumbled upon a character called Amelia Dyer who was hanged in 1896 for the murder of an infant. She was described as a baby farmer. I had never heard this term before and was immediately intrigued. What was a baby farmer? Someone who grew babies for a living?
As I read on I realised the truth was much worse than I ever could have imagined.
 I discovered that in Victorian England, women who fell pregnant outside of wedlock were judged extremely harshly. They were seen as having commited an offence against the sanctity of marriage and were viewed as an affront to morality.  Single mothers often faced destitution and starvation after being kicked out of the family home for fear of scandal. They were unable to find employment and even the workhouses would only accept single mothers at the discretion of the workhouse Guardians, and even then they were separated from other inmates and categorised as ‘fallen women.’ Orphanages would only accept ‘respectable’ children, those who were born within wedlock and whose fathers had died
To make matters worse, the Bastardy Clause of the Poor Law Ammendment Act 1834, made illegitimate children the sole responsibility of the mother until the child reached the age of sixteen. Fathers were effectively freed from any legal responsibility.
As you can imagine, a woman with an illegitimate child was left with very few options. Starvation was one option, prostitution another. A third option was to turn to the services of a baby farmer.
A baby farmer was in the business of fostering or adopting unwanted illegitimate children for a one-off fee or a weekly fee. The idea being that the mother could go back to work and visit her child with the hopes of one day being in a position to reclaim that child. The harsh reality was that most single mothers knew they would never see their child again.
Baby farmers often subjected the children in their care to slow starvation; dosing them with laudanum (known amongst other things as The Quietness) to supress their appetites and feeding them the bare
minimum. Medical science was such that it was hard to prove the deaths of these babies had been brought on deliberately. And with the high rate of infant mortality that was prevalent in Victorian England, often theses deaths were not even viewed with suspicion. 
Some baby farmers took things a step further and murdered the babies in their care the moment they got them home. The bodies would be disposed of around the streets of cities or dumped in rivers, leaving the baby farmer free to take in more babies and earn more money.
Incredibly, there were laws in place to govern the mistreatment of animals, but no laws existed until 1872 to supervise or regulate the care of children. Reforms moved slowly for fear of violating the Victorian ideal of the sanctity of the family. 

Digging around in various records offices and archives, I came across many distressing documents relating to baby farming and infanticide in Victorian England. One I will never forget was a police document listing the number of dead babies found in every district of London during the course of one year. The bodies were found dumped on railway sidings, under bridges, on waste ground or just on the streets. Many were abandoned by desperate mothers, others were killed by the hands of baby farmers.
I was curious as to how such a horrific practice had escaped my notice, and more astonised to find out that hardly anyone I knew I had heard of the practice of baby farming either. When I read the Old Bailey transcript of the trial of baby farmer Margaret Waters in 1870, I was drawn to the voice of a fourteen year old girl who gave evidence at the trial. She had been a maid in the Waters' household and therefore witness to the starvation of dozens of babies. I began to wonder about this girl; about what she saw and heard. What did she think was happening to all the babies that came and went? This maid became the inspiration for Queenie, one of the two main characters in The Quietness. 
The title of the book not only describes the laudanum mixture that was commonly used to quieten babies, but I hope also describes the quietness that seems to surround the whole subject of baby farming: a horrible part of our social history that has been swept under the carpet. I hope that The Quietness helps, in some small way, to redress this ignorance.
Thank you Alison for such a wonderful and informative post.
The Quietness by Alison Rattle will be published by Hot Key Books on March 7th 2013
You can find Alison here:
Twitter:@alisonrattle
I will be reviewing The Quietness on the blog this afternoon, so do pop back to hear my thoughts.

Novel Newsflash - Neil Gaiman Introduces Fortunately, The Milk.



Not one, not two, but three books for the legendary author Neil Gaiman, all coming out in 2013! I can't wait and had to share this information that arrived in my inbox about his children's book, Fortunately, the Milk.
Fortunately, the Milk will be a time-travelling adventure for young readers featuring aliens, dinosaurs, volcano gods and a pint of milk that saves the universe! The book will be illustrated throughout by Chris Riddell, and will be the third Neil Gaiman project that Chris Riddell has worked on. Chris has previously illustrated the tenth anniversary edition of Coraline and The Graveyard Book, for which he was Kate Greenaway Medal shortlisted.
 2013 is set to be the year of Neil Gaiman. In addition to publication of Fortunately, the Milk Bloomsbury Children’s Books will also publish a new picture book Chu’s Day and Unnatural Creatures, a collection of beastly stories chosen, introduced and featuring a short story by Neil. Headline Publishing Group will publish The Ocean at the End of the Lane for adult readers, and Neil is also scripting a new episode of Doctor Who to be screened this year.
 Fortunately, the Milk will be published in hardback in September 2013

Monday 25 February 2013

About Zooming Time, Opal Moonbaby! by Maudie Smith

Pages - 310
Published by Orion Children's Books in February 2013
Imagine you're asleep. You've been sleeping soundly for hours and the night has almost passed you by. Night has a knack of doing that, of pocketing its mysteries and vanishing, leaving you alone with the morning.
Summary
Opal Moonbaby is an alien. She reads minds, has a special brain dictionary, which is a bit muddled, and a pet who is a mix of six different animals. She's also Martha's best friend.
Martha can't wait to take her to school- but she has no idea what will happen when they get there!
******
Opal Moonbaby is one of the most entertaining and colourful characters I have had the pleasure of spending time with. She bursts on the page like a sparkler that never dims and you can’t help but fall in love with her alieness which makes her so naïve to the ways of the world. She is  innocent, yet excitable, like a new puppy.  She’s the alien version of Anne of Green Gables.Her mispronunciations and cliché confusions produce deep belly laughs with each new statement. As Opal zooms from one disaster to another, you struggle to keep a straight face as such laugh out loud moments.
Martha, her bestest friend, puts up with a lot. She feels responsible for Opal and takes looking after her very seriously. More seriously than Opal does. She tries to advise Opal, but Opal is having way too much fun to listen. Until it is nearly too late.  I really didn’t give Martha the respect she deserved until half way through the story, when I realised how troubled she was by Opal’s behaviour and how desperately worried she was about her safety, when basically Opal was out of control. A force of alien nature! Martha is one of those children you would be proud as a parent to call your own.
I loved the inclusion the Mercurials. They were very entertaining characters, especially with their long and uncontrollable hair that held all their power. I would also love a Domestipod! Opal’s imaginative dwellings should be available to buy as a doll’s house alongside the Barbie and Sindy homes.  I am in awe of the powers of Maudie Smith’s imagination. How she comes up with such unique and entertaining characters and settings, I have no idea.
The jokes and hilarious scenes aside, this book does have a deeper meaning. It looks closely as the theme of friendship and what makes a really good friend. Opal realises her errors as the book progresses and goes out of her way to make it up to Martha.
I would buy this series for any young girl, who enjoys comical tales and knows the true meaning of friendship. A blooming, zooming, fantabulous read!

OMG! Is This Actually My Life by Rae Earl

Pages -336
Published on the 7th February by Walker Books
Sunday 28th December
9.23am
OMG – I’M IN PRISON!  It’s actually my bedroom but it might as well be a cell.  I’ve seen what prison is like in EastEnders and except for the fact I’m in heart-print Primark pyjamas there’s no difference.
10.12am
Mum just came up – she is the hardest screw ever (that’s what you call prison officers when you’re inside). Apparently I’ve “disgraced myself” and I’m growing up “way too fast”.  OMG – THIS is from the woman who had her first cigarette at 11.  Gran remembers because she made Mum eat it.  And because it was one of hers and the last one in the packet.  She’s still mental about it now!
Goodreads Summary
Fourteen-year-old Hattie Moore doesn't actually know who her father is - but that's the least of her problems. How can she become a TOTAL HOTNESS GODDESS when Miss Gorgeous Knickers at school hates her and no one fancies her because she has no breast? And her family are an actual nightmare. Her unbelievably annoying brother is EVIL and on top of that, her gran is a TOTAL mental who may be texting rude jokes to just about EVERYONE in the world. Including her dentist.
Hattie's diary of this tumultuous year is an absolutely hilarious account of the ups and downs of teenage life including a dating bogey phobia, near death from biscotti and a home-made breast-growing machine
*  *  *
Reviewed by Caroline Hodges
There’s something about the diary format that I just love.  I’ve never come across one I didn’t like and OMG! Is This Actually My Life? is no exception.  I think it has to do with the fact it makes first person perspective even more personal; you get to know the personality of the protagonist so intimately that within a few pages, it’s like you’ve known them years.
OMG! Is This Actually My Life? takes us through a year in the life of Hattie Moore, 14 years old, pretentious, selfish, prone to exaggeration and yet, utterly loveable.  Unless you’re truly perfect, you’ll likely see a fair bit of yourself at that age in the antics and situations Hattie finds herself in throughout the book.  Remember the first attempts to get the attention of a boy you fancied? Check. Failed miserably? Check. Ended up choking on a biscotti in front of him? Er, well not quite, but we’ve all been there Hattie, don’t worry.
The book really captures the fleeting and flaky obsessions of the young, the despair at being landed with ‘weirdo’ family members who just never understand and the on-going quest to discover who you really are rather than who at school you wish you were.  The character that really stood out for me besides Hattie herself was boy-next-door Goose, who so obviously has a thing for Hattie from the very beginning but she just can’t see it!  Best friend’s Dimple and Jen also bring humour and wise advice to Hattie’s life.
As a current reader I liked how the book was littered with modern day references such as Facebook status’ and Jeremy Kyle which will appeal to its target audience.  However I wonder if it will stop the book having the longevity of say, the Adrian Mole books.   
The only thing I couldn’t stand about the book was the nickname given to Hattie’s arch-nemsis ‘Miss Gorgeous Knickers.’  Really?  This doesn’t really fit to me.  Does she really despise the girl other girl?  Sounds more like flattery to me.
OMG! Is This Actually My Life? is a fun, easy read for teenage girls and the cliff-hanger ending will I think, have them longing for next year’s ‘diary.’

Cover Reveal: Sweet Legacy by Tera Lynn Childs

Descendants of Medusa do battle with beasties in modern-day  San Francisco in this action-packed trilogy.
The concluding book in this kick-ass trilogy. Teenage descendants of Medusa, triplets Gretchen, Grace and Greer, face their toughest test yet as the mythological and the modern collide in a fast-paced urban fantasy adventure. 
Sweet Legacy is publishing in the UK September 2013 – 978-1-84877-942-6 £6.99 - paperback
I am practically drooling at this cover! I loved the first book in this series as it reminded me so much of the Charmed sisters. The second book, Sweet Shadows will hit the bookshops this March, but this lovely cover is of  the third book and final book in the Medusa trilogy.
Author bio: Tera Lynn Childs is an award-winning and best-selling US author of teenage fiction. She holds a degree in Theatre from the University of Colorado and a Masters degree in Historic Preservation from Columbia University. Tera now spends her time blogging and writing wherever she can find a comfy chair and a steady stream of caffeinated beverages. Her first book with Templar Publishing, the mermaid romance Forgive My Fins, was published in 2011, with the follow-up, Fins are Forever, in 2012 and the concluding title, Just For Fins, coming in June 2013. Sweet Venom and Sweet Shadows are published in America by HarperCollins.
Tera tweets: @teralynnchilds
 

Sunday 24 February 2013

Speechless by Hannah Harrington

Published by Mira Ink in February 2013
Keeping secrets isn't my speciality. It never has been, ever since kindergarten when I found out Becky Swanson had a crush on Tommy Barnes, and I managed to circulated that fact to the entire class, including Tommy himself, within our fifteen minute recess-a pretty impressive feat, in retrospect. That was ten years ago, and it still may hold the record for my personal best.
Goodreads Summary
Everyone knows that Chelsea Knot can’t keep a secret
Until now. Because the last secret she shared turned her into a social outcast—and nearly got someone killed.
Now Chelsea has taken a vow of silence—to learn to keep her mouth shut, and to stop hurting anyone else. And if she thinks keeping secrets is hard, not speaking up when she’s ignored, ridiculed and even attacked is worse.
But there’s strength in silence, and in the new friends who are, shockingly, coming her way—people she never noticed before; a boy she might even fall for. If only her new friends can forgive what she’s done. If only she can forgive herself.
*****
This book really surprised me. I had read the author's first book and it hadn't caught my interest as much as other people's, so I was slightly blasé about Speechless. What I found from the very first page of Speechless, was a very powerful book with an extremely strong opening that shows the reality of bullying and gossip that occurs so frequently in schools these days. The author has captured the internet/phone bullying era perfectly.
Chelsea comes across as shallow to begin with. She lives and breathes for a good bit of gossip, regardless of how it might hurt someone. Until the inevitable happens and her big mouth leads to someone nearly losing their life. Chelsea is fully aware of who committed the crime and realises that this time, she needs to open her mouth to tell the truth, even if it means she will be bullied by everyone at school. As soon as Chelsea tells the truth and takes a vow of silence, you see her begin to transform from mean girl, into thoughtful, kind hearted girl. She learns the true value of friendship as the people who should really hate her, become her real friends. Her previous group of friends come across as superficial and flat and it shows they were definitely not worth knowing.
I loved Sam! He is the original gorgeous geek. With his glasses and eclectic dress sense, he just came across as completely gorgeous. And I adored the diner. It took me back to university days when I spent every spare minute working in an American diner.
Chelsea really suffers at the hands of the bullies. How she stayed strong throughout the bullying I honestly don't know.
The book has a Pretty In Pink feel to it, especially with Chelsea attempting to make her own clothes. These are the first YA female characters who actually have hobbies that I would enjoy!
I think this book should really be on every teenager's reading list. It highlights just how wrong bullying is and would make a great study book for PSHE.

The Housemaid's Daughter by Barbara Mutch

Pages - 401
Published in January 2013 by Headline
Reviewed by Caroline Hodges
Mama named me Ada after Madam’s younger sister across the sea in a place called Ireland.
I think that being born in Cradock House has made me grateful all my life.  It makes me feel I am part of it in a way that my mother Miriam never was.  The narrow stairs and the brass doorknobs know my hands and feet, the bony thorn tree and the apricot bush hold me inside them, carrying me in their sap from year to year.  And I own a bit of them in return.  So when Cradock House was taken away from me, I could not understand my life after that.
Goodreads Summary
1935: Isolated and estranged on the arid plains of South Africa, Irish Cathleen Harrington finds solace in her diary and the friendship of her housemaid's daughter, Ada.
Under Cathleen's teachings, Ada grows into a talented young woman, an accomplished pianist and an avid reader. But when she finds she is expecting a mixed-race child, she flees the home she loves. Forced to carve a life for herself, Ada swears she will never return. But Cathleen risks everything to search for Ada and teaches her the most important lesson yet - that beyond the cruelty of their divided country, there can still be love, hope and redemption.
*  *  *
Around once a year, I read a book like this one and just know it will stick with me for life.  
Irish born Cathleen Harrington now lives in South Africa with her distracted husband and two children.  Served by their faithful housemaid Miriam and her young daughter Ada, Cathleen is learning to adjust to her new life.  
The novel is written from Ada’s point of view but through her interactions with Ada and surprisingly few snippets of Mrs Harrington’s diary, the reader grasps the character of this truly selfless lady that will be so influential on Ada’s life.  Following Ada’s journey from childhood to adult and mother we experience her first tragic love for Cathleen’s son Phil, her pleasure in playing the piano, her rejection by both whites and blacks when she conceives a child which fits with neither.  We experience the tumultuous emotions; fear, love, rejoicing for Ada’s exotic and wilful daughter Dawn.  It’s a story of dancing and music, hope and love, revolution and courage.
The cover compares the novel to The Help, but I think this just doesn’t do the book justice.  Yes they both feature black housemaids serving white families, but where The Help portrays a group of maids united in vengeance against a common (white) enemy, The Housemaid’s Daughter is the story of the most forbidden of friendships, flowering despite the harshest conditions.  The love and respect between Mrs Harrington and Ada conquers all barriers except death.      
One thing just didn’t ring true for me; Ada welcoming her ‘Master’ to her bed with seemingly open arms.  As a young girl with no sexual experience, surely the first emotion would be fear, especially considering he has never shown any particular warmth towards her.  The ongoing belief throughout the rest of the book that this circumstance was ‘her duty’ to him in his misery and loneliness still lacks something for me.  Possibly I have misjudged the attitude of servants at this time to their white families.
The interesting thing about this novel is just how visibly you can see the author growing with her main character.  It’s like she’s learning to love Ada along with us. At first it’s hesitant, perhaps overly detailed too soon, but as a big fan of South Africa flaws and all, I just love the detail that went into this novel, from the delicate pink roses in the Harrington’s gardens, to the dirty angry Groot Vis river, to the sound of rain on Ada’s corrugated iron roof and the feel of it between her toes.    
If you’re like me and love historical novels with a personal touch, you’ll adore this captivating debut.

Saturday 23 February 2013

DNF: The Trouble with Fate by Leigh Evans

Pages - 343
Published by Tor Books in January 2013
What do the tree huggers call it? Karma?
No, wait a minute: that's not right. 'Karma' is just a word for what goes around comes around, isn't it? And on the surface, Robson Trowbridge's only crime was to have been the hot guy in school who was totally oblivious to the bottom dwellers of his world.
Goodreads Summary:
WHAT SHE DOESN'T KNOW MIGHT KILL HER: Hedi looks normal. Yet that's taken effort. Her fellow Starbucks baristas don't see her pointed ears, fae amulet or her dark past, and normal is hard for a half-fae, half-werewolf on the run. Hedi's life changed ten years ago, when her parents were murdered by unknown assassins. She's been in hiding with her loopy aunt Lou since, as whatever they wanted she's determined they won't get it. Things change when wolves capture Lou, forcing Hedi to steal to free her -- for if she can offer up a fae amulet like her own they may trade. But it belongs to a rogue werewolf named Robson Trowbridge, who betrayed Hedi on the night of her greatest need. Over forty-eight hours, Hedi will face the weres of Creemore, discover the extent of her fae powers and possibly break her own heart in the process
******
It takes a hell of a lot for me to give up on this book, but no matter how I tried I just couldn't get into this one. I was so looking forward to reading it as I love a good fae book. However this book just didn't work for me personally. I gave up 60 pages in.
 The reasons it didn't work for me are as follows:
-The writing was filled with too much back story for the first book in the series. I felt I was being told all about the character's past life rather than being shown it perhaps through glimpses back.
- I struggled with the writing style. The sentences felt overworked to me, which stopped the natural flow of the story.
- I felt uncomfortable with  Merry, the creature from the fae world that lived in Hedi's bra. Quite frankly it gave me the creeps.
- I found the mixture of fae and wolves just too many fantasy worlds in one. One or the other would have worked for me but both together felt like too much magic in one book.
I know others have enjoyed it but I just couldn't get in it and it began to annoy me. There are other really good reviews of this book, so do check them out. Sometimes you just have to give up on the ones that don't work for you.

Chuck a Book with Gemma from Book Chick City

Today on Chuck A Book, I am pleased to welcome Gemma who blogs over at Carolyn's site Book Chick City.
1) The best book you have ever read. 
I have to choose only one??? That's like trying to choose ones favourite child! It is just so difficult to do. Hmm, so my favourite book I have ever read.  I am going to choose.... Obsidian Butterfly by Laurell K Hamilton. This is due to the fact that this book was my first major step into Urban Fantasy from a teenager to adult. It started the fires of my obsession.
 
2) A book you loved from your childhood.
OK two books here, but I really can't choose. The two books I loved from my childhood have to be Matilda and The Witches. Matilda because she was such a bookworm, like me.  The Witches because it was such a scary book for eight year old me. It didn't help that I was convinced that my teacher, who was reading the book to the class, was a witch.
3) A book that made you laugh.
OK the book I remember making me laugh was Seize The Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon. The reason behind this was the image of this gruff roman soldier sitting down to a plate of cheesy penis shaped pasta. Even now I still laugh at that image.
4) A book you could not finish.
50 Shades Of Grey. Yes I am probably in the minority but I just could not finish that book. I know lots of people love it, yet I couldn't get over that writing. With each page, I grew angrier because I know there is better erotica out there, heck I've read it. So I gave up.
5) A book that made you swoon.
I don't generally "swoon" when reading books, but I do go aww quite a bit. So I'm going to say A Kiss At Midnight because the hero in that book is just sash a dashing Cad!
6) A book you can’t wait to read.
Again, a difficult question to answer as there are a few books I can't wait to read this year. First up it is Lover At Last by J. R. Ward. Next it has to be The Mistress by Tiffany Reisz. That cliff-hanger ending has me biting my nails. And finally Wicked As She Wants by Delilah S Dawson. Very much a mixed bag, but I have diverse tastes.
7) A series you have read and loved.
Again I'm cheating slightly because I have two series that I have read and loved. One is the Black Dagger Brotherhood Series by J. R. Ward. I started these to fill a gap left behind by the Dark Hunter Series written by Sherrilyn Kenyon. I then consumed them like they were going out of fashion. The second series is The Original Sinner Series by Tiffany Reisz. This was a pure accident as I end up picking up books that claim to be darker than 50 shades or "if you liked 50 shades, you will love this". Needless to say I was dubious but man this series is just amazing!
8) A book that made you cry.
 Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison made me cry. The death of a beloved character always hits me hard, but even though the writing was on the wall I cried like a big baby!
9) Your guilty pleasure book. 
Regency Romances are my guilty pleasure. None more so that Eloisa James "Happy Ever After Series." What I like about these is the fact they take fairy tales I loved as a child and give them a novel twist. 
10) A book that took you out of your comfort zone.
 Unsurprisingly, one of my favourite Series has also taken me out of my comfort zone. Both The Angel and The Prince (books 2 and 3) really do have some of the more darker sides of the BDSM books in them, yet I just couldn't get enough. Though they are dark in tone, they are not explicit and the story is just so well written. I just love these books.

Thank you Gemma for some brilliant choices. If you would like to take part in Chuck A Book please email me at Vivienne_dacosta@hotmail.com.