Blog Tour: Water Born by Rachel Ward

Title: Water Born.
Author: Rachel Ward.
Series: The Drowning, #2.
Genres: Thriller, Ghosts, Young Adult.
Publication Date: August 7th, 2014.
Publisher: Chicken House.
Format: Paperback, 275 pages.



Nic’s always loved the water, so being chosen for the swimming team means everything.When she begins to hear a disembodied voice in the pool, she turns to her dad for answers from a past he might not want to remember.

And when girls her age begin mysteriously drowning, Nic may be the only one who can uncover the murky truth...

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I'm a fortysomething author of books for young adults. I live in Bath, England, with my husband, two teenagers, dog, cat and chickens. I've had 'sensible' jobs for 25 years, and now I'm a writer too. I've been writing for about 10 years, and have published the Numbers trilogy. The first book came out in the UK in 2009 and the USA in 2010.

My Numbers books explore the gift of being able to see death dates. If you looked in somebody's eyes and saw the date of their death, would it change the way you felt about people? Would it change the way you lived your life?

Writing As A Boy by Rachel Ward

The Drowning was recently shortlisted for the Sussex Coast Schools Amazing Book Award. Sadly, circumstances conspired against me and I wasn’t able to go to the presentation evening, which was, by all accounts a great ‘do’. However, I was sent a question and I emailed my answer which was read out on my behalf. The question was, ‘What made you decide to narrate The Drowning from a boy’s point of view?’ It’s a good question, particularly as I’ve written five books in the first person (usually first person, present tense).

My answer was: 'I'm not sure I actually decided this! When I knew what the story was, it was clear to me that Carl was right at the centre of it, and when I started writing an exploratory chapter, he was the one telling the story. I wanted to show his journey from amnesia to understanding, and really that could only be told from his point of view. I liked having him as an 'unreliable' narrator – so that the reader isn't quite sure whether Rob is really haunting Carl, or whether he is a product of Carl's guilty and tortured mind...’

Carl is a boy with amnesia, a boy who has to put the pieces of the past back together and doesn’t necessarily like what he discovers. In the sequel to The Drowning, Water Born, my narrator is Nic, a talented swimmer. She finds out that her parents aren’t who they say they are and has to unpick the web of secrets and lies that her life is built on. Again, I don’t think I chose Nic as my narrator. It was very clear to me that Water Born is her story and I wanted the reader to see it through her eyes (although if you’ve already read The Drowning, you know a great deal more about her parents’ history than she does).

I think it’s almost true to say that I’m equally comfortable writing from a male or female viewpoint. In two books (The Chaos and Infinity), I have alternated chapters, male and female. Maybe it is marginally easier for me to write as a female. I remember struggling when I was trying to write The Chaos as I couldn’t seem to find an authentic voice for Adam. I wondered then whether Jem in Numbers had actually been me, or at least an expression of part of my character. Now I’m not sure.

If you write in the first person, you are in effect writing a sort of monologue and in that respect writing is a lot like acting. You need to understand your character, inhabit their skin, learn to think and react like they would. You don’t need to be (like) the person you are writing about, you just need to use your imagination, fed by all the observations you’ve made over the years of other people and the way they speak and act.

Starting to write a book is quite daunting, and so at the beginning of a book, I usually do a bit of ‘exploratory writing’. I tell myself that I’m writing something, anything just to test the water, get a feel for the book. Quite often this turns out to be the first chapter, but if I sat down at a blank screen and wrote ‘Chapter 1’ at the top of the page, I think my mind and body would be frozen until someone came to tuck a blanket over my knees and turn out the lights at the end of the day. Usually the voice I use, and the character I inhabit, for that first bit of writing sets the tone for the rest of the book.

For my next book, I’m experimenting with writing in the third person. Again, this decision sort of chose itself, but it took a bit of getting used to. I kept getting in a muddle and automatically switching to ‘I’ even though I didn’t want to. However, now I’m finding that there’s something liberating about taking a step back as a narrator and being able to see the bigger picture, which you can’t do if you are writing in the first person. I’m enjoying it, which is a good sign. I wonder if readers will even notice, and if they do, if they’ll like it. Anyway, that’s a question for some time in the future. For the moment, I’m wondering whether readers will enjoy getting to know Nic, in Water Born, and whether they will share her confusion and alarm when she starts to hear a voice in the water...

Blog Tour: Afterlife Academy by Jaimie Admans Review

Thank you to Megan @ Reading Away The Days Blog Tours for hosting this feature!

Title: Afterlife Academy.
Author: Jaimie Admans.
Publication Date: March 15th, 2013.
Publisher: Create Space.
Format: Kindle eBook.
Source: Recieved e-copy for blog tour.
My Rating:



Even being dead isn’t enough to get you out of maths class.

Dying wasn't on sixteen-year-old Riley Richardson's to-do list. And now, not only is she dead, but she's stuck in a perpetual high school nightmare. Worse still, she's stuck there with the geekiest, most annoying boy in the history of the world, ever.

In a school where the geeks are popular and just about everything is wrong, Riley has become an outcast. She begins a desperate quest to get back home, but her once-perfect life starts to unravel into something not nearly as great as she thought it was. And maybe death isn’t really that bad after all...

Welcome to Afterlife Academy, where horns are the norm, the microwave is more intelligent than the teachers, and the pumpkins have a taste for blood.

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Review

I received an ARC eBook copy of this book for a blog tour, in exchange for an honest review.

Riley didn't think her boyfriend 'borrowing' his brother’s car and joy riding around town was a bad thing. That is until her boyfriend, Wade, runs over their high school nerd and bullying target; Anthony. After trying to swerve, a few seconds later everything is dark and Riley finds herself at Afterlife Academy; a high school for the dead - along with Anthony, who she was pretty sure Wade just killed. Afterlife Academy is a duplicate of their old high school and suddenly, Riley finds herself an outcast, pretty much friendless – and getting a taste of what life is like to those she tormented. Riley doesn’t want to stay at Afterlife Academy, she wants to go home to her friends and family, and there are rumours of an escape vortex. So Riley and Anthony decide to search the school to try and find their way home.

I loved this book so much; it was a lively and fantastic read. Even though it was a little tame and predictable at times, I found myself laughing with and at the characters and almost tearing up at one point. I’d recommend this book to anyone with a sense of humour, who loves example setting novels with a paranormal plot and anyone who just wants a light read.

Riley's character started off rude, mean and overly popular; pretty much all the characteristics that I hate. However, her character really grew on me as the book went on and I found that her character was funny, sort of sweet and was doing what basically like every girl in the world wants to do. She was trying to fit in. Riley is immature, even for her age of sixteen - she thinks the world revolves around her and her boyfriend. I know this is typical teenage behaviour at times, but you would think dying at your boyfriends hands would sombre you a bit - but apparently not. As the book goes on, Riley does mature a bit and finds out firsthand how horrible it is to be picked on and what it’s like to be an outcast. Because of this, her character blossoms and she realizes what she's been doing to people is wrong and wishes she could redeem herself.

Anthony's character was lovely. Even after all Riley did to him in the past, he was still willing to put it behind him and let bygones be bygones. Anthony continues to prove how much of a sweet guy he is throughout the book, being friends with Riley and being there for her all the time. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be all too willing to befriend someone that had tormented me so much - so props to Anthony for being a mature adult about the situation. Along with being smart and a bit of a geek, Anthony is also funny, kind and generous - he's definitely a character I'd like as a friend!

Even though I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, there were a few things that bugged me. I found it increasingly annoying how Riley kept saying about Anthony having a calculator in his front pocket. I know she keeps trying to remind herself that he's a geek, but the repetition of that phrase really, really irked me. I thought that the book was a little rushed in places and I believe that it could have been slightly longer and more detailed. Also, I was a little disappointed about the way the romance was played out, I thought it could have been a little more in-depth – but that might just be me being a romance fanatic.

Overall, I really loved this book. Afterlife Academy wasn’t a perfect book, but very few are. I believe the 4/5 star rating fits it perfectly, it would have been given a 5/5 star rating if it weren’t for the few things that bugged me – but every book has its faults. Jaimie Adman’s writing is fantastic, fresh and funny – I honestly can’t wait to read more by her in the future.

Quotes

The growling sounds louder now, and when I glance down I'm not sure that I believe what I'm seeing. The candle inside the pumpkin is flickering madly and I'm almost positive that it's the jack-o'-lantern growling at me. The pumpkin.
Pumpkins don't growl. At least, they don't in my world. I stare at it. No. It's not possible. But still it growls. - Loc 585, 15%.

“Where is this growling pumpkin?”
“In my dorm room,” I say. “Sitting on a table by the window.”
“You sure it wasn’t a dog outside or something?”
“No, it was definitely the pumpkin. I felt it move. It looks seriously evil.”
“I don’t know why I’m surprised. So far we’ve seen a woman who dies in 1949, a kid disappear into thin air, and a woman with horns coming out of her forehead. And my resident advisor is so old I have no idea how he can stand up.”
“Mine too,” I say. “And he can run up the stairs like nobody’s business.” - Loc 675, 17%.

"So you're trying to get yourself expelled?"
I nod sullenly.
"Dare I ask what three little pigs have got to do with that?"
"They're just a prank," I say. I pull a marker out of my pocket and hold it up. "I was going to write on them. Label them numbers one, two and four and then let them loose in the school. The teachers will spend all day looking for number three." - Loc 3246, 85%.

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Jaimie is a 27-year-old English-sounding Welsh girl with an awkward-to-spell name. She lives in South Wales and enjoys writing, gardening, drinking tea and watching horror movies. She hates spiders and cheese & onion crisps. She has been writing for years, but has never before plucked up the courage to tell people. She writes mostly chick-lit and young adult. Kismetology is her first novel and there are plenty more on the way!

Blog Tour: The Harvesting by Melanie Karsak Review

Title: The Harvesting.
Author: Melanie Karsak.
Publication Date: September 13th, 2012.
Publisher: Steampunk Press.
Format: Kindle eBook & Paperback.
Age Group: New Adult/Adult.
Genre: Horror and Fantasy, Zombie.
Tour organized by: AToMR Tours.
Source: Recieved e-copy for blog tour.
My Rating:


It's all fun and games until someone ends up undead.

Though Layla reluctantly returns home to rural Hamletville after a desperate call from her psychic grandmother, she could never have anticipated the horror of what Grandma Petrovich has foreseen. The residents of Hamletville will need Layla's help if they are to survive the zombie apocalypse that's upon them. But that is not the only problem. With mankind silenced, it soon becomes apparent that we were never alone. As the beings living on the fringe seek to reclaim power, Layla must find a way to protect the ones she loves or all humanity may be lost.

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Review

I received an eBook copy of this book for a blog tour, in exchange for an honest review.

Layla is living successfully and happily in New York when she receives a rather anxious and demanding phone call from the psychic Grandmother that raised her. Layla’s Grandma demands that she must return to her home town straight away, and then hangs up without giving a reason. When Layla arrives, she finds her Grandmother has been stockpiling supplies, getting rid of unnecessary objects and sends Layla out on errands to gather even more necessities – all, again, without telling her what’s going on. Her Grandma teachers her how to load and shoot the firearms she’s stocked up on, and puts her into an induced sleep. Once Layla awakens, she finds the Zombie Apocalypse has spread to her town, turning many of the people into flesh eating Zombies, her Grandma is missing and she now has psychic abilities. However, Layla has to push all that aside as she tries her best to protect the town and the people in it; who have all of a sudden turned to her for guidance.

The Harvesting was a great New Adult/Adult post apocalyptic and fantasy novel all squished into one. I liked this book, I really did; it contained humour and just enough romance to satisfy my girlish need. However there were quite a few things that just irritated me, didn’t seem to fit or I found brought the rating of the book down in general.

Layla, our main character, is the kick-ass heroine who appears in town and helps save the day - pretty predictable, right? Although I liked Layla’s character overall, I didn’t feel that she was very well developed at all. Layla is a fencing/martial arts sword instructor and curator. As the book progressed, I kept hoping that we’d find out more about Layla’s character, past and personality but I was disappointed. She has bad history in the town, leaving after a messy breakup with her high school sweetheart four years ago and hasn’t returned since. The only characteristics I managed to pick up from Layla is that she’s strong-willed, a great sword wielder and a natural born leader.

Throughout the entire novel, we meet quite a few new people from the small town. Although they’re pretty much glossed over and not well described; it was fun to read about them as they blended into the story. Two people we meet in particular are Ian and Jamie, who are brothers from the town. Ian is Layla’s high school sweetheart and ex-boyfriend. I hated Ian from the start, not just because of the things he did to Layla in the past, but because his character was a complete and utter jerk. Jamie is a sweet and kind guy, who’s just come back to the town from being in Iraq as a medic. I loved Jamie from the start, he was such an easy going guy that you could tell that Layla could fully relax and be herself around him.

Although I was disappointed not to know more about the characters personalities, it didn’t stop me from wanting to continue reading this novel. I did find that the novel was constantly jumping from scene to scene; often jumping a month or so into the future with no pre-warning – which was really annoying and hard to keep up with. I also wished there was a lot more detailing than there was, it felt like the author was just gliding over the details and important information. Whether this was intentional or not, I found it slightly frustrating.

The story had so many different aspects to it, which I loved. There was plenty of Folklore, fairies, magic, weapons and battles to keep any fantasy and post-apocalyptic enthusiasts entertained for a while. At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about all these different aspects, seeing as I at first I thought it was just a Zombie novel, but the more I read the more interesting and appealing it was. Along with being a post-apocalyptic novel, we meet another super-natural being – which I thought was totally out of place at first – but looking back, I realised it helped make the novel what it was.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book; it had so many different twists and turns that I never knew what would happen next. Unfortunately, I did only rate it 3/5 stars because of the aspects mentioned above. Melanie Karsak’s writing was completely different from what I’ve read before and I’ll be sure to check out the sequel to this book, The Shadow Aspect, when it’s released!

Quotes

“If you ever need to slice someone’s head off, this is the blade you want,” I said as I lifted a curved sword off the table in front of me. - Loc 49, 1%.

“Layla, we need more weapons. We’ve cleared out the Lewis’ shop and the Sheriff’s Office, but it’s still not enough. And we really need more ammo,” Will said.
“What about the VFW? They got anything there?” I asked.
Will shook his head. “Just antiques.”
“They’ve got a working cannon. We could use that,” Jeff said.
“Dude, what are you gonna do with a cannon? We’re not fighting the British Armada,” Will replied. Jeff gave Will the finger. - Loc 984, 23%.

KiKi pulled off the headphones. I dropped the paper and pushed open the window. “Jump,” I told KiKi. Following behind her, I bounced out of the window. For the second time, I landed on the roof of the porch. I did not like that this was becoming a trend. - Loc 2919, 69%.

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Melanie Karsak, steampunk connoisseur, white elephant collector, and caffeine junkie, resides in Florida with her husband and two children. Visit the author at her blog to learn more about upcoming projects, book signings, and other neato things.

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Blog Tour: Aurora Sky, Vampire Hunter by Nikki Jefford Review

Thank you to Xpresso Book Tours for hosting this feature!

Title: Tranfusion.
Series: Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter, #1.
Author: Nikki Jefford.
Publication Date: December 9th, 2012.
Publisher: Create Space.
Format: Kindle eBook.
Source: Recieved e-copy for blog tour.
My Rating:



If there is one thing eighteen-year-old Aurora Sky wants, it’s to get off the iceberg she calls home. Being kissed before she graduates wouldn’t hurt either.

Then a near-fatal car wreck changes everything. Government agents step in and save Aurora’s life in exchange for her services as a vampire hunter. In Alaska. Basically she’s a glorified chew toy. All thanks to her rare blood type, which sends a vampire into temporary paralysis right before she has to finish the job… by hand.

Now Aurora’s only friends are groupies of the undead and the only boy she can think about may very well be a vampire. And if he’s a vampire, will she be forced to kill him?

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Review

I received an e-Book copy of this book for a blog tour, in exchange for an honest review.

Transfusion was a fantastic book that kept me on edge and propelled me to keep on turning the pages to read more and more. This novel was incredibly unique with such an interesting, well thought out and fascinating plot that I didn’t want it to end! Throughout the entire book, you can easily tell how fresh, fun and original everything is, right down to the littlest of details.

Aurora Sky is a bit of a social outcast, but is determined to keep calm and carry on throughout her remaining time left at High School. Aurora has been accepted at a top league college, Notre Dame, and can’t wait to get out of her small town in Alaska. Suddenly, Aurora is in a car crash that leaves her fatally injured and on the verge of death – until suddenly, the government steps in with a proposal. Aurora’s mother happily signs away her daughter’s future to the government to save Aurora’s life. The downside (at least, Aurora think so), is that she has now unwillingly become a Vampire Hunter. With the help of a special vaccination created by the government, mixed with her rare blood type, Aurora’s blood temporarily paralyses any Vampire who may happen to bite her. Aurora is sent out into the field, with her mentor, Dante, to assassinate any Vampires that she finds.

I loved Aurora’s character; she was such a typical teenager that it made me smile. She’s stubborn, hot-headed and doesn’t get along with her parents very well. Other than that, Aurora is also funny, smart and well grounded. Obviously, Aurora has been through a lot, but I found that throughout the novel her character was constantly growing and maturing into an even better version of her original self. I was constantly laughing at different things Aurora would say or do; she has that teenage arrogance and witty sarcasm that made me like her character even more.

As for Fane’s character, I loved him from the start. He’s dark and mysterious, brooding and alluring. I’ve probably mentioned how much I love those characteristics in male characters before – but I’ll say it again – I love them! Alongside with being all mystifying and puzzling, he was also really sweet, kind and cares a great deal about the people in his life. The book doesn’t got a whole lot deeper into Fane’s character, which was a bit disappointing, but none the less, I thought his character was great.

I loved the fact that the relationship between Aurora and Fane was not insta-love. Sometimes I can read it and enjoy it, but most of the time it really irritates me because things just don’t happen like that in real life. Aurora and Fane’s relationship grows and blossoms into a passionate and sweet relationship. They connected on a whole different level and the chemistry between them was really intense. I loved how they took time to get to know each other and how much Fane took care to Aurora. It made their relationship even more believable and sweet.

Although I was pretty much in love with this book, I ended up bumping it down a star because at times, the plot got a little confusing and often one scene would suddenly jump quickly to another with no warning what so ever. I also thought that the novel was a little rushed and wished it could have gone into a little more detail in certain places. However, these things did not diminish my opinion of Transfusion. I thought Nikki Jefford’s writing was amazing and captured the everyday teen’s actions and personalities really well – I’ll definitely be reading more by Nikki Jefford in the future. Overall, I really enjoyed reading Transfusion - it was such a fantastic read - and I can’t wait for the sequel to be released!

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Nikki Jefford is a third generation Alaskan who loves fictional bad boys and heroines who kick butt. She is the author of the Spellbound Trilogy and upcoming Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter series. Nikki married Sebastien, the love of her life, while working as a teaching assistant in France. They now reside in the not-so-tropical San Juan Islands, 70 miles northeast of Forks, Washington.

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