The Hallowed Ones Tour Stop

Today I have The Hallowed Ones blog tour stopping by Alluring Reads and I'm excited to share a great excerpt with you.  But first, a little more about the book.

If your home was the last safe place on earth, would you let a stranger in?

In this captivating thriller, an Amish settlement is the last safe haven in a world plagued by an unspeakable horror…

Katie is on the verge of her Rumspringa, the time in Amish life when teenagers are free to experience non-Amish culture before officially joining the church. But before Rumspringa arrives, Katie’s safe world starts to crumble. It begins with a fiery helicopter crash in the cornfields, followed by rumors of massive unrest and the disappearance of huge numbers of people all over the world. Something is out there...and it is making a killing.

Unsure why they haven’t yet been attacked, the Amish Elders make a decree: No one goes outside their community, and no one is allowed in. But when Katie finds a gravely injured young man lying just outside the boundary of their land, she can’t leave him to die. She refuses to submit to the Elder’s rule and secretly brings the stranger into her community—but what else is she bringing in with him?

 And now, here is the first chapter of The Hallowed Ones for your reading pleasure.

THE HALLOWED ONES

Copyright © 2012 by Laura Bickle

CHAPTER 1

After the end of the Outside world, the Plain folk survived.

At the time, I didn’t know that the end of Outside had happened. None of us really did. We knew that something was wrong, of course. That knowledge trickled in slowly, like a leak in a roof. The signs accumulated, and then there was no denying the dark stain spreading over the pale ceiling of our world.

My first inkling was on a day in late September under a cloudless blue sky. The ravens had begun picking at the corn that was drying in the fields, black specks in the gold. I leaned on the wooden fence post, watching the birds scratch and listening to them caw to one another in their inscrutable hoarse language. The wire fence was pierced here by a wooden gate, to move farm equipment and cattle. This was a remote part of our little settlement of Plain people, but it made a good place to get away from chores and parents.

Beside me, Elijah had picked up a rock to scare the birds away.

“Don’t throw that,” I said, automatically. “It’s mean.”

Stacking The Shelves (15)

Books mentioned (click title for Good Reads):
Don't Turn Around (PERSEFoNE Trilogy #1) by Michelle Gagnon
The Deepest Cut (MacKinnon Curse #1) by J.A. Templeton

Bloggers mentioned:
Katie from BlookGirl
Giselle from Xpresso Reads

A big thank you to Katie from BlookGirl and HarperCollins Canada!!

Anna Dressed in Blood Review

TITLE Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna #1)
AUTHOR Kendare Blake
PUBLICATION August 30, 2011 by Tor Teen
READ July 29 - 30, 2012

Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

Anna Dressed In Blood has been on my radar for quite some time now. Why didn't I pick it up before now? Well, I wasn't certain that I would be able to buy into the "ghost hunter falls for ghost" thing. I mean, it sounds pretty ridiculous to me still, after finishing the novel. But Kendare Blake made it work, she took a ridiculous premise and she weaved a novel that I ate up hungrily and now that I am done? I. Want. More. This novel was INTENSE, as an avid horror fan I tend to be let down by the typical YA version of the genre. But I can honestly say that this novel gave me the willies. The descriptions are vivid and terrifying, from the disemboweling of a character to the grotesque deaths that Cas is witness to throughout the years.

Cas is our MC, our Male MC, yes we are treated to the male perspective here folks and he was awesome! He was sarcastic and sure of himself. I will admit at the beginning of the novel his self-assurance was a bit off-putting and I wasn't sure how he and I would get along. But as it went on, I realized he had every right to have the confidence that he had, he kicked ghost-ass, you can't really get more kick-ass than that. I really warmed up to him and his sarcasm had me laughing out loud at times which really served to lighten up the novel a bit. While we had our creepy deaths and ghosts lurking in the shadows, we also had Cas making light of the situation with his witty remarks. He was a loner of a boy when the novel started out, moving around all the time and never wanting to get attached to anyone because he didn't want to get himself in a situation where he would miss someone. But Thunder Bay changes his regular routine and he goes from a lone wolf to having a pack of his very own.

The people that Cas meets in Thunder Bay are varied and served to give his character a lot of depth. The beautiful "queen-bee" Carmel is someone who changes immensely throughout the novel and proves that she is not just your run-of-the-mill snob. She has an admirer in one of Cas' new found friends, Thomas. Thomas was adorable and loveable. He was a socially awkward boy who finally found a place for himself in Cas' dark and twisted reality. His mind-reading threw me for a loop at first but there is a lot of supernatural in this novel and it all fits together so well. The group spends their days at high school so of course we are also treated to the regular jocks and stuck-up girls and they are written into the story in a great way and they all play their respective parts.

Anna Dressed in Blood has the perfect balance of scary and funny, on one page you will be clutching your blanket to your chin and on the next you'll be laughing at some funny remark. This marriage of the two made for a reading experience that I will remember and recommend to anyone looking for an alluring read.

In Honor Review

TITLE In Honor
AUTHOR Jessie Kirby
PUBLICATION May 8, 2012 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
READ July 23, 2012

Hours after her brother’s military funeral, Honor opens the last letter Finn ever sent. In her grief, she interprets his note as a final request and spontaneously decides to go to California to fulfill it.

Honor gets as far as the driveway before running into Rusty, Finn’s best friend since third grade and his polar opposite. She hasn’t seen Rusty in ages, but it’s obvious he is as arrogant and stubborn as ever—not to mention drop-dead gorgeous. Despite Honor’s better judgment, the two set off together on a voyage from Texas to California. Along the way, they find small and sometimes surprising ways to ease their shared loss and honor Finn’s memory—but when shocking truths are revealed at the end of the road, will either of them be able to cope with the consequences?

I've been hearing a lot of good things about road trip novels, and when I told anyone that I had never read one I always got a very suprised response and was told to read on ASAP. Well I read my first road trip novel, it was In Honor and it was so much fun! This was a super quick read at just over 200 pages and I loved every page. There are a lot of details in this novel that weren't exactly original such as Rusty resembling Tim Riggins so much and Kyra Kelley is quite obviously the books version of Taylor Swift, "...it was perfect that Kyra was singing a song about a no-good, small-town guy who was just plain mean.", "... And with Kyra Kelley who was singing about wishing she'd never had to grow up." Taylor Swifts "Mean" and "Never Grow Up", anyone? So, while it's not the most original story I've ever read all the components are there for a fun engrossing read.

Honor was a great main character, and seeing the story through her eyes was great. She had been through a lot, lost both of her parents at a young age and became quite attached to her brother Finn. When Finn dies in the line of duty she takes his first and only handwritten letter that she receives as a sort of last wish for him that she must fulfill. She takes the two concert tickets that he sends and sets out on a mission to tell Kyra Kelley about how great her brother is. I felt her pain at losing the most important person in the world to her, and I understood her need to completely one last thing in his honor. Of course the trip doesn't go exactly as planned and when Finn's old best friend Rusty joins the trip things get interesting.

Rusty's hot, that's all there is to it. As someone who was addicted to Friday Night Lights the parallels to the hottie that is Tim Riggins are quite obvious. He's a down-home country footballer who has his demons in his past and finds refuge in a bottle of booze. But underneath that exterior you just know that he cares more than you can ever know, and the little glimpses he gives to his sweet side make you weak in the knees. There's something about the taming of the typical bad boy that is so enticing. Every girl wants to be the one to tame him, the one he finally settles down for. As Rusty's true intentions become clear in the novel you can't help but actually "awww" out loud.

Honor and Rusty's trip is an adventure that anyone would love to go on. They get opportunities to do things they never thought they would, and they deal with their grief as a pair. In Honor has the perfect balance of sadness, romance and fun. It is a novel that can easily be read in a single sitting and takes you through its own array of emotions, so if you are heading for a day at the beach this summer I definitely think you should pack this in your beach bag.

Wake Blog Tour Stop

Today I have the author of the upcoming novel Wake, Amanda Hocking, stopping at the blog for a guest post about her all time favorite aquatic villains.  There's also a chance to win an ARC of Wake so be sure to check it out!

 

Amanda's Top 10 Aquatic Villains

10. The Liquidator

One of Darkwing Duck's many nemeses on his afternoon cartoon series in the early-90s, the Liquidator was originally a salesman named Bud Flood before he tried to poison the city's water. After a freak accident in a fight with DW, he was transformed into living water and spoke almost entirely in sales-pitch puns. Plus, he's the only villain on this list that's actually composed of water.



9. Orca

The orca in the 1977 cult film Orca is an animal on a vengeful mission. After witnessing sailors harpoon his mate and accidentally miscarry her baby, Orca goes after every human he can on a bloodthirsty mission to avenge his family, making all the carnage somewhat noble. Still, the film serves to have the most disturbing whale abortion I've ever seen, and it did give me nightmares as a child.



8. The Gillman

Also known as The Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Gillman was pretty terrifying, especially for 1954 standards. Awoken from his prehistoric slumber, the creature is resilient, incredibly strong, and apparently attracted to nubile young woman.



7. Crocodile

While there were many crocodiles vying for a position on the list (including the man-eater from Lake Placid, the beast from the Australian film Rogue, and Disney duo The Rescuers' Brutus and Nero), the hand-stealing stalker from Peter Pan won out. While he has never killed anyone, and seems to have a fetish for Captain Hook only, the ominous warning of the ticking clock he ingested gives him the edge.



6. Black Manta

One of Aquaman's archnemesis, Black Manta is a major underwater villain. He can breathe underwater, swims like he's in the Olympics, and has a crap-ton of fancy weapons. I don't fully understand why he hates Aquaman so much, but one time, he did kill Aquaman's son, so it's safe to say that he's an evil dude.



5. Sharktopus

Out of all the original monsters in SyFy movies, it was a tough call to pick the best. I considered both Mega Shark and Giant Octopus, but then I realized why pick shark or octopus when there's both? Sharktopus - the star of the 2010 movie of the same name - has a mouthfull of razor sharp teeth, tentacles, spikes all over its body, and inexplicably, the ability to go on land and eat people. So yeah, it's pretty much the most badass thing ever.



4. Piranha

Piranha 3D and it's sequel Piranha 3DD may be campy, gory fun, but seriously - look at those fish and tell me you wouldn't die of fright before those little monsters tore into you? Piranhas in real life are scary enough, but these demonic fish are even worse.



3. The Loch Ness Monster

As seen in grainy photos through out the years, it's tough to say for sure if the Loch Ness Monster is really a villain or just a  misunderstood Irish fish. But it's basically an underwater dragon, and it's big enough to eat me. That's scary enough.



2. Ursula

The sea-witch with a vendetta against The Littler Mermaid. She's probably the most well-known underwater villain, and when she isn't plotting with her eel henchmen Flotsam and Jetsam, she's known to belt out an Oscar-worthy show tune.



1. Jaws

Not just any "Jaws." But the Jaws from Jaws: The Revenge - because this time it's personal. If I understand the films correctly (and I think I do), it is actually the same shark. He survives being blown up in the first movie, then something in the second movie, the 3-D SeaWorld attack in the third one, and now he's chasing down Martin Brody's wife out of some kind of vendetta I don't understand. Yet Jaws perseveres, and he does it all with his own theme music and a sharky kind of dignity. And he will eat you.

As part of the Wake blog tour brought to you by BB Book Tours I am happy to be able to give away 1 ARC of Wake to a lucky reader. This giveaway is open to residents of the US only.  To enter just fill out the Rafflecopter below.  Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Watersong cover story so far:

Wake is releasing August 7 and Lullaby is set to come out November 27.

Amanda's Website / Twitter / Facebook

Amanda Hocking : I live in Minnesota with my dog, two cats, two fish, and my roommate/assistant/platonic lifemate, Eric. I actually live in Austin, a.k.a. SPAMTown, USA. They invented SPAM here, and the town is quite proud of it. (Here’s a vlog with a fun tour of the SPAM museum: here.)

I do many things, most of them lame and boring, but the thing I get paid to do is write young adult books.

All three books in my Trylle Trilogy - Switched,Torn, and Ascend - were originally self-published, but were re-released with St. Martin’s and Pan Macmillan internationally with new bonus content in early 2012. The trilogy has also made the USA Today Bestseller list, the New York Times Bestseller list, and was recently optioned for a film by Media Rights Capital with District 9 screenwriter Terri Tatchell adapting the books for screen.

St. Martin’s and Pan Macmillan recently acquired my new young adult four-book series Watersong, with the first book Wake coming out in August 2012. My zombie series, The Hollows, is being adapted into a graphic novel by Dynamite.

I also enjoy Red Bull, Jim Henson, Batman, Jane Austen, Star Wars legos, and I absolutely hate long walks on the beach out of my intense fear/hatred of wet sand.