So, today’s post is decidedly a mishmash of exciting/fun things plus lots of pictures. 

This past Saturday, a friend of mine and I went to a Dark Days tour stop to see Lauren Oliver, Claudia Gray, and Dan Wells. It’s not often that these sort of events happen close enough for me to attend, so I was really excited to go.

It was great to hear them talk and take questions. Dan, especially, was hilarious, and the cutest question of the day went to this adorable little girl with wearing a straw hat who asked Lauren if there was going to be a sequel to LEISL AND PO, her middle grade book.

There was a good-sized crowd there! I was happy to see it's not just "young adults" who wanted to meet young adult authors :)

I’ve been entirely too behind on leisure reading lately, so I hadn’t read any of the books being promoted at this event, but I’m eager to do so, now :)

From left to right: Claudia Gray, Dan Wells, Lauren Oliver

I hear Rachel Hawkins, writer of HEX HALL, will be nearby in a few weeks. I hope I can make it to her event, as well!

That's me in the red! Hi!

In other book news, I’ve been getting exciting things in the mail! I read GRACELING a long while back, and I admit I haven’t read FIRE yet, but I was really looking forward to BITTERBLUE. And now, courtesy of awesome friends, I have an ARC! This is an enormous book, guys, which sometimes puts me off books I’m not sure I’ll like but actually makes me really happy in this case because the story will last longer! The next trick is finding time to actually read it. But I’m sure that will be doable ;)

Pretty, pretty book

Finally, I’ve recently received some awesome swag from the equally awesome Lissa Price, author of STARTERS. This is actually for a giveaway that will be happening on Pub(lishing) Crawl this coming Thursday. I’ll be interviewing Lissa, too, so don’t miss that!

Pretty, pretty swag

Time to get back to school work and writing and reading (still need to read through those books for the Remembrance Book Project! Though BITTERBLUE is going to take precedence, haha).

Hope you guys have a great week! Has anyone else been to any book events lately? 

Short Excerpt & Pics!

She was waiting when they came at ten 'o five, sitting with her knees against her chest, her bed curtains drawn tight around her. The curtains had to be drawn. She had tried, many times before, to keep them open, but every night, at ten 'o clock exactly, she would wake and and she would draw them. She had to. It was the first step. Obedience was mandatory. 

With the curtains drawn, she never saw where they came from. She never saw them at all until they were close enough to cast dark shadows on the purple cloth, until their white hands drew the curtains back. There were three of them, and every night they curtsied in unison, one on either side of her bed and one at the foot.

She would only have a moment to stare at them, at their porcelain faces—literally porcelain, with gleaming skin and painted-on features, their lips blood red and curved in perfect cupid bow pouts, their eyes unnaturally wide and brown under a fringe of dark lashes. They had only nubs for noses, and their heads only tapered a little at the chin. They wore simple purple dresses, their black hair pinned up in lazy buns. They did not blink.

They were her porcelain handmaidens. Their jointed fingers, when they grabbed her—not violently, but firmly—were cold and stiff. They never spoke. They performed their jobs with silent efficiently, and it took exactly the same time each night.

~

Just a random little excerpt from a random start to a WIP I wrote one day. Proper blogging will return soon. In the mean time, I’m writing lots and reading tons and otherwise on break ;)

pictures found here: http://weheartit.com/entry/17374275

and here: http://weheartit.com/entry/23331797

WHERE THE LILIES BLOOM review

The traveler said, “Today at noon I leaned my back against a cloud and ate my lunch. And afterward, coming down the slopes, I saw a lake of blue flowers and then a long, wide scarf of deep maroon ones. This is fair land; the fairest I have ever seen.”

I never saw the traveler again. An hour later, he disappeared into the mists that sometimes cover this valley in the spring. But I have never forgotten what he said—that this land was fair land, the fairest of them all. This is where the lilies bloom.

WHERE THE LILIES BLOOM 

By Vera Cleaver, Bill Cleaver

Published 1969

Just reading the first two pages of this story makes me insanely nostalgic. This book was everything I loved to read as a kid, and Mary Call’s voice is amazing: tough, a little bitter, honest, and proud. WHERE THE LILIES BLOOM tells her story and that of her sisters and brother after their single father passes away. At fourteen, Mary Call isn’t the eldest, but her eighteen-year-old sister Devola is “cloudy-headed,” as she calls her, and so it’s up to Mary Call to keep her family alive during the harsh winter while keeping everyone else around convinced that their father is still alive, only sick, so nobody will come and take her siblings away. 

Their life is, and has always been, tough, even before their father, Roy Luther, passes. Here’s a short passage (I can’t help sharing passages. I’m the sort of reader who will demand people listen to my favorite quotes from books because they’re so wonderful) from the beginning of the book that really captures both Mary Call’s voice and their situation:

Roy Luther has made me promise him some things:

When the time comes, which he hopes will be in his sleep, I am to let him go on as quietly as he can, without any wailing and fussing. I am not to call any doctor or allow anyone else to call one. If it happens at night I am to wait until morning before I tell the others. I am not to send for the preacher or undertaker. The preacher has a might voice in these mountains but he expects to be paid for his wisdom. And the undertaker, for all his hushed, liquid speakings of how paltry his tariff will be, can be ill-humored and short-tempered when the time comes to divvy up as we found out in the case of Cosby Luther, my maternal parent, who died of the fever four years ago.

So it is that Roy Luther had requisitioned me to give him a simple, homemade burial when the time comes. After I am sure his heart and breathing have stopped, I am to wrap him in an old, clean sheet and take him to his final resting place which will be within a stand of black spruce up on Old Joshua.

I’d go on and quote more, because the next bit is really great, too, but then I’d probably just go on and quote the whole book, so I’ll stop there.

Okay, one bit more? This is from a little further down:

Sometimes when I look at him I am stirred to an unholy anger. I think, God help me, Roy Luther, I don’t want you dead and that’s the truth. But since it’s going to happen anyhow I wish it could hurry up and be over with for it’s pulling us all to pieces and I need to get on with things and try to fix them around so that life will be easier for those of us who are left.

All right, all right. I’m stopping for real now before I get slapped with some kind of copyright infringement :P

WHERE THE LILIES bloom is really the sort of book you can sink into, and I can see why I remember it so strongly. Mary Call and her siblings—five-year-old Ima Dean, ten-year-old Romey, and eighteen-year-old Devola—are all deftly characterized and fully three dimensional, as is the setting. Reading the book is a bit like visiting a town I’d lived in a while as a kid; things I’d forgotten about are re-discovered and bring back with them other memories. 

Now, to be fair, I haven’t actually finished re-reading the book yet. Yes, I know, it’s strange to do a post about a book before I’m even finished with it, but with everything that’s going on, I didn’t have time. So I thought I’d put up what thoughts I had so far and maybe finish the book by Wednesday :)

I really have no idea how much of my love of this book is tinted by the fact that I enjoyed it as a kid—though honestly, I think I might like it even more now than I did back then. At the same time, there are definitely parts that trip me up more than I remember. 

One thing I did notice is how Mary Call does sound older than fourteen some of the time. It’s an interesting experience, reading about a character who was older than me when I first read the book. At eleven or twelve, I never thought Mary Call might seem too old because I hadn’t gotten to fourteen yet and figured that was just how fourteen was. Now, at twenty, fourteen seems young instead of old, and I have to wonder if my perception of what’s “too old” for a fourteen-year-old is skewed.

But really, if any of this sounds at all appealing to you, you ought to give this book a go…if only for the scene where they cure a sick man with hot greasy onions in a bath tub. Seriously. 

Now, I’m off to finish the rest of the book :)

The Remembrance Book Project

So, it’s almost the beginning of my lovely week of Spring Break. I’m looking forward to being at home doing a lot of happy non-school-y things (like sleeping and watching TV and eating regular meals at regular meal times :P).

I’m pretty close to finishing the first draft of Book 2 of the Hybrid Chronicles, so there will be a lot of writing going on over break, but there’s something else I’d like to do, as well. 

The last time I went home over Winter Break, I visited my local library and was struck by how familiar the shelves were. I’ve been visiting this particular library since about third grade, moving from the Children’s section to the Young Adult section...and then following the Young Adult section around the library (they kept moving it!) until it reached the spot where it now sits. 

I haven’t been to this library much since leaving for college, and to be honest, I wasn’t even here a lot during high school—not nearly to the extent I was in middle school and elementary school. But it’s funny how many of the books on those shelves I still remember. It’s kind of cool, thinking about how they sat there in pretty much those same spots (well, since the last moving of the Young Adult section) when I was a kid. 

So many books seem like they’re transitory now. People talk about so-and-so book being in the limelight or being a “fad,” expecting it to pretty much disappear out of the public consciousness after a short while. And sometimes, they do. But I still remember so many books I read when I was younger—and I’m not even talking about favorite books. Some of these books I read only once, and I didn’t even particularly like them that much. But just seeing the title again, or the cover, brings scenes from them rushing back to me. 

So as a personal little project, I’m going back and reading five old books I remember strongly from my childhood. These aren’t “favorite books” or even ones I read more than once. In fact, I’m purposely choosing books I might otherwise never bring up. 

But they’re all books that made a strong enough impression for me to still remember them off the top of my head now, even though I haven’t touched them in years and years.

I’ll be going back and re-reading them one by one, then writing about them here, maybe talking a little about how accurately I remember them—and if I even still like them! If you’d like, please do read along with me :) These will all be old books, and I’m sure it won’t be hard to find a copy at a bookstore (possibly used) or whatnot. 

So, without further ado, the books:

WHERE THE LILIES BLOOM 

By Vera Cleaver, Bill Cleaver

Published 1969

Goodreads: Set in the Appalachian hills, this story tells of 14-year-old Mary Call's efforts to keep her family together and independent after their sharecropper father dies.

I remember picking this book up somewhere at my middle school. The girl’s face on the cover had been scribbled out with a pen. I remember loving Mary Call fiercely for her perseverance and her strength and being sort of grossed out by a particular scene involving a lot of hot onions in a bathtub. Yeah.

Anyway, I think if you’re going to read any of the books I bring up, you should read this one. It’s probably the one I remember with the most fondness.

THE RUNAWAY’S DIARY

By Marilyn Harris

Published 1971

Goodreads: A diary of a young girl's experiences during the three months she spends in Canada after running away from her troubled home. 

You know, I have absolutely no memory of this book being set in Canada. None at all. I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I read this, but probably eleven or so. I do recall being convinced it was a true story (it’s one of those books that presents itself as something that really happened). I was supremely gullible about that sort of thing as a kid though. Like, I thought maybe the Series of Unfortunate Events was real. 

What? I was in elementary school, and it said so in the dedication!

This is an interesting cover, though. The one I read was hardback and lacked the dust cover, so it was just navy blue with the title in dark lettering or something.

DRAGON’S MILK

By Susan Fletcher

Published 1989

Goodreads: "You must go to the dragon. You must leave tonight." 

Before she even hears the words, Kaeldra already knows what she must do. She must search out the mother dragon whose draclings have just hatched and somehow get some of her precious milk. It's the only way to save her foster-sister's life. Kaeldra would rather not go. It's much too terrifying, much too dangerous. But Kaeldra knows that she's the only one who can do it. For she is the only one who can actually communicate with dragons. 

But little does Kaeldra know what she's getting into. She's about to begin a journey that will entwine her fate with that of three little draclings and one would-be dragonslayer. A journey that will become a struggle for life. 

I’m not entirely sure why this book stuck in my mind so much. I don’t remember much of it, other than what’s in the description. In fact, I don’t even remember the whole communicating with dragons part. But hey, magic cure-all dragon’s milk! That’s cool, right?

DEALING WITH DRAGONS

By Patricia C. Wrede

Published 1990

Goodreads: Cimorene is everything a princess is not supposed to be: headstrong, tomboyish, smart. . . . And bored. So bored that she runs away to live with a dragon . . . and finds the family and excitement she's been looking for.

This is the book you’re most likely to have already heard of, I think. It’s book 1 of the Enchanted Forest series, of which I think there are at least five books, though I’ve only read the first two...unless I’ve forgotten the others ;)

You know, I think part of the reason I’m not so into dragon books now is because I read entirely too many of them at a kid. Anyway, I remember thinking these were hilarious. There was also a magic closet and Cherries Jubilee. I still don’t know what exactly Cherries Jubilee is, even after ten years.

By the way, there was one book I wanted to add to this list, but I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember the title. I’m going to spoil it like crazy here trying to describe it, but if anyone knows what I’m talking about, let me know? It was basically a paranormal YA book, and I read it back in middle school, so it’s nothing recent. The main character was a girl, and she could shapeshift into any animal she wanted. The story went that everyone was actually born with this ability, but if you didn’t discover it before the age of seven or whatever, you lost it. However, even if you did figure out you could do this, you’d lose the ability anyway at age 16 or 18 or something. I don’t recall exactly. Eventually, she meets some guy, and the plot happens (honestly, I can’t even remember the plot, lol), but at the end, they pretty much get in a situation (somewhere very, very cold. I remember that much) where he dies (in an explosion? A fire?) and she escapes. And then there’s a sequel where he comes back because turns out he discovered he could shapeshift into a phoenix at the last moment and rose from his own ashes, and I’m pretty sure she somehow shapeshifted into a vampire. 

Yeah. Now don’t you want to know what crazy books those were??

So, I’m saving spot number 5 in case someone figures out which book(s) I’m talking about. I always thought it was just called SHIFTERS or THE SHIFTERS or whatnot, but google gives me an adult series for that name, and plugging in keywords like “young adult book about shapeshifting kids” gives a million and one results.

In the mean time, I’ll get started on WHERE THE LILIES BLOOM! Anyone gonna read along? It’s a good book!

PS All book posts will be spoiler-free unless otherwise marked :)

First Pass Pages

I received the first pass pages for WHAT’S LEFT OF ME recently, all three hundred fifty-ish pages of it, and it’s still rather surreal. There’s a title page! And page numbers! First pass pages are basically when they send you the manuscript formatted as it will be once it’s actually bound, but the pages are still normal printer-page sized. As the author, you’re supposed to look through them and mark if there are any errors from post-copyediting or formatting or whatnot, but really, what you’re doing is staring at the pages over and over and pinching yourself. 

I’ve been getting more requests for ARCs lately, and that’s really exciting :) Sadly, there aren’t actually any ARCs in existence yet! I’m not sure when that will happen, but if you do want to request an ARC, you can go ahead and email me and I’ll pass it on to my publicist. I can’t believe there are only (well, “only” is subjective!) six and a half-ish months until release. Wasn’t it just April 2011 a few days ago??

It’s midterms time over here in university land (Vandyland, as we like to call it!), so I admit I don’t really have a blog topic today. If anyone ever has any questions or topics, by the way, please do let me know ;) I never know if I’m just going on about stuff no one really care about, anyhow.

So, in the mean time, hope you guys are having lovely leap year Februarys. I’ll be the one over here working on papers, Book 2, and these first pass pages. Let me know who wins those Oscars ;)

PS Hope you like the new blog layout! I just got it changed so it matches my main website better.