Category: Blog Tour

Item: Muder for Choir
Rating: 3
Author: Jana

On the Island by Tracey Garvis Graves (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Posted July 20, 2012 by Jana in Blog Tour, Book Excerpt, Giveaway / 5 Comments

Hello! Welcome to my stop along the On the Island virtual blog tour, hosted by AToMR Tours.

You might remember back in March when I participated in another blog tour for this book (also with AToMR). Of course, I adored it, and have been shouting its praises from the rooftops for months now.

Since then, On the Island has taken the world by storm. 5-Star reviews went up all over the Internet, and the book gained a lot of publicity. Plume (an imprint of Penguin) snatched this book up, gave it a new cover, and re-published it! MGM has even bought the movie rights! During all of this, Tracey has become a great friend of mine, and I am SO excited for her. When I saw the opportunity to participate in another blog event for her book, I jumped at it immediately.

Make sure you read the book excerpt (haha. I was assigned one of my favorites!), and enter the giveaway to win one of ten signed copies of On the Island after this event announcement!

Here’s what you can expect throughout the tour. It sounds like so much fun!

In addition to reviews and promotional/celebratory posts, keep an eye out for key words in a special scavenger hunt! Select blogs will be hosting one word from two of Tracey’s favorite book quotes (one from each of the main characters in the book: Anna and TJ). Visit each stop and collect the words (they will be numbered, and I have Anna’s quote, word #6 at the end of the excerpt!). After July 22nd, submit your answers here. Random entrants will be selected to win books and swag. Those winners will be chosen and notified by July 29th.
On Monday, July 23rd, at 8:00 PM come join us as we live chat with the author on Savor Chat. You can sign in there with your Twitter or Facebook information.
Be sure to follow the Twitter hashtag, #ontheisland, to see random shout-outs to win books and swag. (@Tale_of_Reviews)
On the Island has been available in bookstores, both brick and mortar and online, since July 10th. If you happen to see it “in the wild”, take a picture and tweet it using the event hashtag (#ontheisland), or post it to Facebook). Make sure you also submit those tweets/posts here.

On the Island Book Excerpt

We were eating lunch when a chicken walked out of the woods.
“Anna, look behind you.”
She turned around. “What the heck?”
We watched as the chicken came closer. It pecked the ground, not in any kind of hurry.
“There was one more after all,” I said.
“Yeah, the stupid one,” Anna pointed out. “Although it’s the last one standing, so it’s done something right.” It came right up to Anna and she said, “Oh, hi. Do you not know what we did to the rest of your kind?” It tilted its head and looked up at her as if it were trying to figure out what she said. My mouth watered. I thought about the chicken dinner Anna and I would have. But then she said, “Let’s not kill this one, T.J. Let’s see if it lays eggs.”
I built a small pen. Anna picked the chicken up and put it inside. It sat down and looked at both of us like it was happy with its new house. Anna put some water in an empty coconut shell. “What do chickens eat?” she asked.
“I don’t know. You’re the teacher. You tell me.”
“I taught English. In a major metropolitan area.”
That cracked me up. “Well, I don’t know what it eats.” I bent down by the pen and said, “You better lay eggs because right now you’re just another mouth to feed, and if you don’t like coconut, breadfruit, and fish, you may not like it here.” I swear to God that chicken nodded its head. It laid an egg the next day. Anna cracked it into an empty coconut shell and scrambled it with her finger. She put the coconut shell near the flames and waited for the egg to cook. When it looked done, she divided it between us.
“This is fantastic,” Anna said.
“I know.” I finished my share in two bites. “I haven’t had a scrambled egg in so long. It tastes just like I remember.”
The chicken laid another egg two days later. “That was a good idea you had, Anna.”
“Chicken probably thinks so, too,” she said.
“You named the chicken, Chicken?”
She looked embarrassed. “When we decided not to kill it, I got attached.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Something tells me Chicken probably likes you, too.”

Scavenger Hunt: Anna’s Quote, Word #6:
Underwear

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Cecilia Gray’s Writing Do’s (Author Guest Post)

Posted July 16, 2012 by Jana in Blog Tour, Guest Post / 1 Comment

Cecilia Gray lives in Oakland where she reads, writes and breaks for food. She has written 7 books, the most recent of which (Fall for You) is the beginning of the young adult contemporary romance series, Jane Austen Academy. Two of her other novels: A Delightful Arrangement (The Gentlemen Next Door #1) and An Illicit Engagement (The Gentlemen Next Door #2) have spent time on several romance bestsellers lists in Spain, Italy, the UK, and the USA.

I’m delighted to have Cecilia here today to discuss some writing tips as part of the AToMR tour celebrating her newest book, Fall for You.

Dieting has never worked for me. The second you tell me what I can’t eat, it’s all I can think about is eating it. No carbs? I’ll eat a pizza. No fat? I want bacon.

The same is true of writing. Don’t tell me what I can’t do. I’ll want to do it. No starting a story with a dream? I’ll give my heroine a 300-page nightmare.

Instead, I’d rather focus on should I should be doing.

I should be eating more vegetables and lentils. I should be going organic. I should be eating nonfat yogurt.

Here are my writing “you-shoulds”:

You should draw the reader in by posing a question.
I don’t mean an obvious question-with-a-question mark. I mean a sentence that begs a question, any question.I was listening to the new Maroon 5 song and the first line is, “I’m at a payphone trying to call home all of the change I spent on you.” The sentence brings up all kinds of questions. Who is he trying to call? Why is he trying to call them? Where in sweet hell did he find a payphone? Even though I know nothing about the situation in the song, I sympathize with the singer, because he’s desperately trying to reach someone and I know the feeling.Your first sentence should engage the reader to question what is happening, and more improtantly, to care about what is happening.

You should force the reader to set their own stage.

This is a fancy way of saying show don’t tell, and the reason it works because it switches the reader from reading passively to reading actively, and if a reader is more actively drawn into a story, they have more stakes in the outcome.

“She was sad” says less than “She fought the sting of tears at the corners of her eyes.” (Apologies for both sentences being pretty lame….)

Both beg the question, why is she crying. But the second also makes you realize she doesn’t want to be crying, that she is desperate not to cry, which adds depth and dimension to her emotional state.

You should invite the reader to complete their own story.

Consider the following endings (my apologies for any spoilers):

–    Life of Pi when the veracity of Pi’s story is thrown into doubt and you must decide whether he was really in a boat with a tiger or a man who murders his mother
–    The ending of Inception when you must decide whether the hero has found happiness with his family or is trapped in a coma
–    Before Sunrise or Before Sunset when you have to decide whether the couple will stay together – and whether it’s the right decision
–    The Giver when you must decide what journey the hero takes
These stories have powerful endings precisely because their resolution depends on the reader.

This doesn’t absolve you of telling a satisfying story, but consider whether the satisfaction really comes from tying up every loose end. Is there a thread better left untold? Is there a question you want to leave for your reader?

All three Do’s have one thing in common: reader engagement. Each Do is a way of waking up your reader, forcing your reader to read deeper, asking your reader to care more, think more, do more.
Getting your reader to do more is more work for you, but if you’re stressing about it – you could always eat a pizza.

Thanks, Cecilia! Stop by the tour schedule and visit the other tour stops to read reviews of Fall for You, more guest posts, book excerpts, and other cool things!

Let’s Hear it for Almigal by Wendy Kupfer | Children’s Book Review

Posted July 10, 2012 by Jana in Blog Tour, Children's Book Review, Inner Child / 2 Comments

Title: Let’s Hear it for Almigal
Author: Wendy Kupfer
Illustrator: Tammie Lyon
Release Date: April 16, 2012
Publisher: Handfinger Press
Format: Kindle
Source: JKSCommunications/Netgalley
Buy it Here: Amazon (Used copies available Amazon Marketplace.) or Here for brand new copies from the book’s website.
Add It: Goodreads

This fun and original picture book introduces Almigal, a spunky little girl with hearing loss who is now determined to hear every single sound in the universe thanks to her new cotton candy pink cochlear implants. These sounds include a baby’s funny giggle, the robin’s chirps outside the window, the soft song played during ballet class, and especially her best friend Chloe’s teeny-tiny voice. But most of all, Almigal wants to hear her parents whisper to her when they tuck her into bed every night. Almigal’s spirit will have both children and parents alike rooting for her, while the story delivers a positive message about accepting and celebrating differences.

This book is pretty darling. From what I could tell, the illustrations are gorgeous. I read this on my Kindle, so all the illustrations were tiny and in grey and white, but I could see that the lines were soft, the images whimsical, and from the cover, I can tell that the colors are vibrant and girly.

Let’s Hear it for Almigal does a great job at explaining that every person is different in their own way. Some speak Spanish, some have little voices, some wear glasses, some have twin sisters, and some are deaf like Almigal. Almigal embraces the fact that she is deaf, and needs hearing aides. She loves being different, and even changed her name from Ali to Almigal, because nobody else has that name. What a great heroine to look up to. Even at my age, I feel weird if I’m different. Embrace it! It’s empowering. Still, though, being different can make you sad sometimes. Almigal struggles with this, making her relatable for almost every child out there.

This book also teaches responsibility. Almigal’s cochlear implants are expensive, and she is taught that they must be taken care of. The same idea goes for children who get glasses for the first time.

Finally, it teaches children that being deaf is not a problem. In fact, it’s kind of cool because you get special little implements that help you hear. And they come in all different colors. Again, this goes for anything: glasses, braces, casts, wheelchairs, etc. Even though the book focuses on a deaf child, the example can be applied to any situation where a child is different.

I definitely enjoyed this story, and think it would be great for children who deal with deafness, whether it be with themselves, a family member, a friend, or a classmate. Moreover, it teaches children that being different is cool. And you know what? Sometimes we adults need to remember that, too. I can just see myself reading this book to a class of mine, and then listing out all the cool ways people are different. Some role-playing might even be fun.

Murder for Choir by Joelle Charbonneau (Review & Giveaway)

Posted July 5, 2012 by Jana in Adult Fiction, Blog Tour, Book Review / 15 Comments

Muder for Choir by Joelle Charbonneau
Series: Glee Club #1
Published by Berkley on July 3, 2012
Genres: Mystery
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher (Mail)
Add to Goodreads
Buy on Amazon

Even as a struggling opera singer, Paige Marshall has never seen anything like the cutthroat competition of the Prospect Glen High School show choir. Coaching these championship-hungry students may be her toughest gig yet...

Especially when her best young male singer is suspected of killing the arrogant coach of Prospect Glen's fiercest rival. To clear his name, Paige will have to sort through a chorus of suspects, and go note-for-note with a killer who wants her out of the spotlight for good.

Welcome to today’s stop on the JKS Communications virtual book tour for Joelle Charbonneau’s newest book, Murder for Choir, a cozy mystery filled with singing, dancing, competition, and intrigue. I’m so glad you stopped by!

Seeing as how I was a show choir girl all through high school and college, I was incredibly excited to find a mystery novel that centered around such a fun time in my life. It was also nice to step away from the young adult books for a little while and read about people closer to my age. As always my main points are bolded. :)

1. I think the idea for this book was fun and unique. You can do a lot with a show choir, and there are a lot of story elements you can tackle. I’ve never watched the TV show Glee, but a blurb on the cover said, “Imagine if Stephanie Plum joined the cast of Glee…” I’ve also never read a Stephanie Plum novel! Haha. So, I can’t agree or disagree. Perhaps this will give you an idea, though, of what the book is like. :)

2. Paige Marshall is one of those characters that you want to either scream at or be best friends with. On the one hand, she’s always getting herself into trouble. She’s that heroine in the movies who walks out in the dark in her socks because she thinks she heard someone out there. You want to yell at her, “GET INSIDE, DUMMY!” I feel like she was lacking in basic, common sense. It got her in trouble. On the other hand, though, she’s sweet and is doing all of this to save a teenage boy who was accused of murder. She had good intentions, so I guess I can look past that. Haha. She’s also pretty funny.

3. Paige’s three co-workers: Devlyn (my favorite), Larry, and Felicia, were great characters. They were all very different from one another, with dynamic personalities, which was really nice. Sometimes supporting characters are boring and kind of mush together. I really liked them, though, except for officer Mike. I did not like him at all. Throughout the entire book he seemed aloof and unorganized. Plus, he seemed to be a total playboy. Paige’s Aunt Millie was a little over the top for me. She kind of reminds me of Richard’s mother in the TV show, Castle, if you’re familiar with that: tacky clothes, money, a Mark Kay pink Cadillac, and a pushy personality. Both women love their families, though, which is why I can let the tackiness slide and adore them both. And I must admit, Millie was hilarious. Her taxidermy pets and pink platform shoes were heartwarming.

4. The mystery was very intriguing, but not entirely realistic to me. Paige, a teacher, took the police investigation on herself and ended up getting into a lot of trouble. She should have been arrested so many times for interfering with a police investigation, but she never did. If you can look past the fact that this all would most likely never happen, and just enjoy the story for what it is you’ll be fine. :) I had to keep reminding myself of this throughout the book. I guess I watch too much CIS/NCIS/Castle/Blue Bloods. I just wasn’t buying it.

5. Regardless of my former point, I was kept guessing on who did it until about the last quarter of the book. I actually figured it out before Paige did, which made me really proud of myself! Usually the ending is a surprise to me.

6. Maybe I was just lucky, but my show choir experiences were not this cut throat and ruthless. Directors did not have to sleep with adjudicators in order to get higher scores or placements. Students did not wish someone dead or threaten people in the hopes of winning a competition or getting ahead. We all just liked each other and enjoyed the music we made together. So to me, this also felt unrealistic. But the author is a major musician and performer, so maybe she saw this kind of thing happen in her choral experiences. I was just surprised. Haha.

Overall, this is a fun little mystery. I enjoyed the characters and the basic plot line. Joelle is a great storyteller, and I enjoyed her writing style. While I found things to be a little unrealistic, once I looked past that and just focused on the story I began to enjoy it more. Was it my favorite book? No. But I would recommend it to people who love mysteries, a little romance, a little suspense, and choral singing.

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Head on over to the other stops on this tour for more reviews, author interviews and guest posts, and more giveaways!

Cicada by Belle Whittington (Book Review + Giveaways!)

Posted June 18, 2012 by Jana in Blog Tour, Book Review, Giveaway, Young Adult Fiction / 4 Comments

Cicada by Belle Whittington
Series: Cicada #1
Also in this series: Firefly, Monarch
Published by CreateSpace on September 13, 2011
Genres: Paranormal, Paranormal Romance, Romance, Science Fiction
Pages: 220
Format: eBook
Source: Author
Add to Goodreads
Buy on Amazon

Summertime for Blair Reynolds and her friends had always been carefree and fun... until the summer they happened upon something that was not human. As they band together in a fight for their lives, Blair's true love becomes something more than human. Something unnatural. And their survival depends entirely upon their ability to keep a secret.

Hello! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog as I help kick off the AToMR blog tour for Belle Whittington’s Cicada, book #1 in an exciting and suspenseful young adult sci-fi trilogy (haha. Long sentence there!)! When you are finished reading my review, make sure to find the complete schedule of tour events at the bottom. Also, find the opportunity to win one of 12 ebook copies of Cicada and/or an electronic firefly in a jar in honor of the upcoming sequel to Cicada, called Firefly. Both Rafflecopters are at the bottom of this review. :)

Going into this book, I was not really sure what to expect at all. I mean… cicadas are bugs. And they are noisy little guys! I used to live in Louisiana, and every summer night was accompanied by the sounds of cicadas in the trees. One time I saw one and flipped out. I’m really against bugs in general. And then I read the book blurb, which does not tell you much, and saw the “not human” and thought: Oooo! Aliens! And sci-fi. And hopefully not huge bugs, because I would have a major problem with that. Cicada surprised me! I was not expecting such a suspenseful, romantic, creepy, mysterious, and exciting story. I’m a huge lover of reading conspiracy theories (I don’t believe most of them, but they are fun to think about!), so when crop circles and aliens and UFOs and secret government agencies came into play, I was up all night reading. This was a great story! As always, my main points are bolded. :)

1. This is a way different kind of story than most sci-fi books I’ve come across lately. It’s kind of a mix of the movie Signs and the Wings series by Aprilynn Pike. Weird, I know. That sounds crazy. Seriously, though! You’ve got the aliens and the crop circles and the “I’m freaking out about the fact that you’re outside in the dark right now” feeling, mixed with the “my boyfriend, who I thought was normal, is not normal at all and is changing and becoming a new person, and I might not see him for a while, but I need to pull through this and be strong” kind of situation.

2. Welcome to a young adult romance without a love triangle! Do you know how much I loved the fact that the main story was not centered around two boys fighting over one girl? It was glorious! Everett, the geeky guy in the group is Blaire’s best friend, and things develop from that. It’s a natural, common kind of real life relationship and I was very happy to see that surface in a sea of books with love triangles.

3. The characters were a lot of fun, but Blair was not my favorite at all. She was kind of an ordinary heroine to me. Her brother Andrew, though, was so great to read about. He is this sweet big brother who has a whole bunch of secrets, and really adores and protects his sister. Blair’s mom kind of weirded me out. She spoke to Blair a lot in sing-sing rhymes, which I found… well, weird. Haha. David is a baseball stud, whose batting skills came in handy and made me like him a lot. He’s also a very caring friend. Then there’s Natalie… and her role in the story confused me. She and David have a thing for each other, but don’t act on it because college is coming up and they will have to part ways. But they are still cuddly and dependent on each other, and then all of a sudden, the relationship escalates, but we were given no clues that it was happening! That romance was a bit unconvincing, but it’s probably because they are supporting characters, so we don’t get much info on them.

4. The creep-factor in Cicada had this chicken quivering under every blanket she owned. There’s just something about people walking through really dark, dense woods in the middle of the DARK. Plus, as Blair and all her friends started to get more and more involved with this non-human situation at hand, they became targets of a very dangerous group of people who were out to kill them. Now me, I’d hide in my closet. Or I’d move. Join a convent. Flee the country. What did they do? They went searching for these people! They entered mysterious buildings with green lights inside in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. Because surely, waiting until it’s light out is not at all practical. You know how you watch a movie, and the main character hears a noise outside, so they walk out to see what it is? And they’re all, “Hello? Is someone there?” And you’re like, “DUH! GETINSIDERIGHTNOW!” Yeah. Exactly. Would you go snooping around scary city in the middle of the night? No, I think not. I was so creeped out that I called my little sister at 2:00 in the morning and asked her to go with me when I brushed my teeth, so that I would not have to walk across the dark hallway alone (because I swear I heard an alien out there). Yes, I’m admitting this to you. And I’m a chicken. This might be something your mom would read as a bedtime story to a 7-year-old you. Don’t judge me if you read this and are not scared. Toast popping out of the toaster has me practically running in place.

5. I wish there was a bit more substance. There was a lot of riding around “in the darkness” and searching a building and four-wheeling and visiting a storage facility. I wish we had been given some more character development and a few different events. The story was relatively short, though, so maybe we’ll get more in book #2. :)

6. The main climax of the book moved really quickly. It took a while to build up, which I enjoyed, but then BAM! Crazy thing happens, and then crazy thing is somewhat resolved within a few pages. I would have liked a little more time between the crazy and the resolution. We are led to believe (through what the characters say) that fixing this major, major problem is going to be extremely hard, but they do it rather easily within just a few pages. I wanted to go through more turmoil and more worry. I wanted the characters to have to struggle more. This is really hard to explain without spoiling things. If you’ve read the book, you know what I mean.

7. The vague blurb was obviously written vaguely for a reason, so I’m not going to spoil anything for you. I find that sometimes a book’s back cover summary gives way too much away. This one leaves you with a lot of questions, which brings me to my next point: this book has left me with SO MANY QUESTIONS, which really frustrated me! Haha. I’m glad there’s a couple more books coming out in this story, and hopefully I’ll know what’s going on by the end of those. :P

This is a really nice debut from Belle Whittington. Of course, there is room for improvement, but isn’t there always? I’m excited to see what she does with the following stories, and it’ll be fun to watch her writing style and storytelling develop as her books continue. The sign of a great author is that each of their books are better than the ones before. I can see Belle being one of those authors. I enjoyed the story a lot, and am going to be on the lookout for the next one. I’d recommend this to lovers of sci-fi romances and conspiracy theories.

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Here’s a link to a video of what the electronic firefly looks like. Very cool!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
These giveaways include everyone on every stop of this blog tour, so there is no guarantee that one of my readers will win. Also, I’m not the one in charge of choosing the winners. They are. :)

Follow the tour! Here’s the schedule.