Triple Threat Blog Tour: Interview with Megan Miranda, Author of Hysteria

Today we are hosting the Triple Threat Blog Tour with Megan Miranda, author of Hysteria!  She dropped by to answer a few questions for us!

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1.) Where did the idea for Hysteria come from?

I got a sense of character first, and the idea that she would have killed her boyfriend at the start of the book. But the idea that became the story started after I had been researching for a bit. I was looking into stories about memories and hauntings, and I got carried away thinking about all the things that can haunt, and in all the ways those things can haunt.

 

2.) The cover is so cool!  Did you have any say in how it progressed? (If not, what was it like seeing it for the first time?)

I didn't come up with the concept, but when they sent me the image they were hoping to use for my feedback, I did a double-take. Then I got a chill. And then I thought… perfect. It captures the mood and the tone, and the "is this really real, or is this all in my head?" element perfectly.

 

3.) What’s it like to right about the blurred edges of madness?

It's like walking a very fine line. I want to make sure *I* keep a very firm grasp on what's happening to keep the story grounded, but to allow that fear and confusion to translate without becoming confusing (wait, is that confusing?)

Honestly, it took me a while to get there. I’d get notes back that marked large passages that said “too confusing” or “unclear” in draft after draft from both my critique partners and my editor. So a lot of the process was finding that line, walking across it, and learning how to balance.

 

4.) What projects are you working on right now?

I'm working on revisions for my 2014 book, which is a sequel/companion to Fracture. It's told from Decker's point of view and takes place about 8 months after the events in Fracture. It's about the idea of a curse, and how people can believe, and also how it can take people over….

I'm also working on a few different projects for what comes next. All have a bit of a thriller element to them, in very different forms.

 

5.) Just for fun, what’s your favorite:

Drink: Diet Coke

Food: Mac & cheese

Animal: It’s not that I don’t like animals. It’s just that they don’t seem to like me so much…

Song: Changes by the moment, depending on my mood. And also on what I’m writing J

Book: Impossible question! I always default to the best most-recent book I’ve read. Which, at the moment, is Gone Girl.

Vacation Spot: The beach

Triple Threat Blog Tour: Also Known As by Robin Benway Review and Interview

 

 

1.) Where did the idea for Also Known As come from?

 

It all started when I couldn't get into the storage unit in my apartment building. It had a Master Lock on it, but i had forgotten the combination, so I went to the source of all information: Google. 15 minutes later, I learned how to crack the lock and I started thinking how awesome it would be to do that for a living. And lo, Maggie was born.

 

2.) (Just for giggles) What are the 5 best benefits to being a teenage safe cracker?

 

1. Being able to get into your locker with no problem.

2. Being able to get into someone else's locker with no problem.*

3. Always having a good excuse to skip class. ("Sorry, I have to go save the world. Get the homework for me, okay?")

4. Your extracurricular activities will be quite impressive on your college applications.

5. No one can keep secrets from you.

*Very unethical, but still.

 

3.) Would you be a spy if you could?

 

I think, ideally, I would love to be a spy, but I would be the WORST spy in the world! I get too nervous and I blush easily, and I don't have Maggie's steady nerves when it comes to cracking safes under pressure. Our national security would be compromised in five minutes. I'll stick to writing novels.

 

 

4.) What projects are you working on right now?

 

The sequel to "Also Known As", which is so much fun! I love finding out what's happening with my characters and watching them grow. They're like my little fictional children, so I like checking in on them from time to time.

 

5.) Just for fun, what’s your favorite:

 

Drink: Espresso or prosecco (depends if it's morning or night)

Song: "Deep Red Bells" by Neko Case

Movie: "Singin' in the Rain"

Book:Franny & Zooey by JD Salinger

Superhero: Violet inThe Incredibles

Disney character: Gus Gus the Mouse inCinderella (love him!)



 

Also Known As by Robin Benway

eARC received from Bloomsbury

Release Date:  2-26-2013

Reviewed by:  Middle Sis Jenn

The Sisters Say:  Witty and Hysterical

Being a 16-year-old safecracker and active-duty daughter of international spies has its moments, good and bad. Pros: Seeing the world one crime-solving adventure at a time. Having parents with super cool jobs. Cons: Never staying in one place long enough to have friends or a boyfriend. But for Maggie Silver, the biggest perk of all has been avoiding high school and the accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple locker combinations.

Then Maggie and her parents are sent to New York for her first solo assignment, and all of that changes. She'll need to attend a private school, avoid the temptation to hack the school's security system, and befriend one aggravatingly cute Jesse Oliver to gain the essential information she needs to crack the case . . . all while trying not to blow her cover.

Spies.  That’s all I needed to read before I was sold on this one.  Plus, I’m always looking for new contemporary because I love them—even though they are really hit and miss with me.  Also Known As was definitely a fun read albeit it, the story is completely unrealistic.  (At least I think it is, but who knows, I’m not a spy.)  Getting over the fact that the story seem sensationalized to me, I still found myself laughing at loud at the random humor that Robin so brilliantly added.

Robin’s writing definitely stole the show with this spy thriller.  Maggie is a teenage safecracker who has always been a part of the spy world—a girl on the outside looking in at what the normal world does every day.  And right away, she is intimidated, but that doesn’t bog her down.  Instead, she straps on her trusty sarcasm and heads straight for the lion’s den.  “Right off, I noticed that no one else was alone:  students traveled in packs of two, three, or four through the halls, not moving out of the way for anyone else…Wild animals also traveled in packs, I realized.  That was usually how they surrounded and devoured their prey.”  ARC, Location 381-383  I love her sense of humor here, and Maggie’s blunt and clever thoughts just keep getting better and better.

I loved Maggie, but my favorite character, by far, was Roux.  She’s this punk girl with a “stick it to the man” chip on her shoulder, and I loved every single, trashy word that leaped from her mouth.  She was hilarious, and she had a way of turning the simplest of scenarios into something that will cause you to fall off the couch and roll around on the floor laughing.  (Seriously).  Need an example?  “’Well, I think we can all agree bidets are weird,’ Roux announced as she strolled back into the room.’” ARC, Location 2433-2434  I mean, girls don’t talk about going to the toilet!  So, when this came popping out of her mouth (in front of the cute guy nonetheless), I found myself laughing hysterically.  Because, let’s face it, bidets are weird!

Despite the hilarious writing and great female characters, there were still times when the plot dragged.  I found myself skipping over entire paragraphs to get to the good parts.  In a spy thriller like this, I don’t need all the extra, gritty details.  I need the bang of guns, the hiding in plain sight, and the occasional passion-filled kiss!  I really didn’t get much of this, though, which is upsetting.  The whole “spy” part of the story seemed to fall into the background as the relationship part of the story took center stage.  I don’t have a problem with this really, but it would have been nice to hear a few guns J

One other thing that threw me off (it didn’t bug me, it was just different) was how middle grade the romance and action were while the language was definitely YA to Mature YA.  I mean, there were a whole lot of s-words, and a-words and what not, but very little of anything else that would show their age level.  Take away the language, and you would have a middle grade book.  I would have preferred a steamier romance to accompany the rest of the story.

Overall, this was definitely a fun read, and I am still reeling from the great humor that Robin put into her story.  I will definitely be reading more by her in the future!  If you are a fan of spy stories or fun, light-hearted contemporaries, then this is a book you definitely need to check out.  Push through the slower parts and the unrealistic story and get to know the amazing and witty characters.

Blog Tour: Dance of Shadows Review and Author Interview

 

Today we have the pleasure of hosting the Triple Threat Blog Tour with Dance of Shadows and Yelena Black!!!!  Yelena was nice enough to indulge us by answering a few questions!

 

1.) If you could pick 5 YA novels that could be choreographed into a ballet, which ones would you choose?

 

Bunheads by Sophie Flack, Mystic City by Theo Lawrence, Vixen by Jillian Larkin, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and Elemental by Antony John.

 

2.) Why did you choose ballet as a focus for your novel?

 

There is something very “ancient” about ballet as an art form to me, and I’ve always been intrigued by it. I studied dance when I was younger, and I loved the idea of taking that quality of dance and stretching it into a story about legend and ritual. Ballet especially is so rigid and structured that I think it creates a very atmospheric setting for a novel. Plus, the dance apparel is so iconic that people have great imagery of ballet “items” (pointe shoes, tutus, and more) that it adds another visual layer to the story that’s already there.

 

3.) So many people have said that the cover of Dance of Shadows is the prettiest cover they have seen.  What was it like seeing the cover for the first time?

 

I’m so glad that people love the cover, because I think it is stunning. My jaw literally dropped to the floor when I first saw it. (Well, not literally, but you know what I mean!) It was so fun to see the cover because I’d worked on the book for so long and thought about what the cover might look like … but I never imagined anything as beautiful as this. I am lucky and honored and so thrilled to be working with the fabulous team at Bloomsbury.

 

4.) What projects are in the works for you right now?

 

I’m hard at work to the sequel to Dance of Shadows, which is going very well and I’m super excited about.

 

5.) Just for fun….what are you favorite:

Drink: Diet Coke

Candy: M&M’s

Book: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Animal: Cats!

Holiday:  Christmas, of course!

 

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Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black

eARC received from Bloomsbury via Netgalley

Release Date:  On Shelves Now

Reviewed by:  Middle Sis Jenn

The Sisters Say:  Dark and Chilling

I will admit that the cover is what drew me to this book.  It is easily one of the best covers I’ve seen so far in 2013, and although the book did not live up to the amazingness of the cover; I still enjoyed it. 

This is the first ballet book I have read, and I will say that I spent most of the book picturing the people from the movie Center Stage (probably because it’s the only ballet movie I’ve ever seen).  That did make it more enjoyable because, having never taken ballet before, I actually had an idea of the moves so I wasn’t just picturing some random leaps into the air.  I actually enjoyed the ballet aspect of the story better than anything else.  It’s a world that is so beautiful and severe, and Yelena definitely captures that stress and flawlessness of ballet in her writing.  I could see the tension in their nerves melt away as the characters started dancing.  The ballet made this book captivating, and it is the ballet that will bring me back for book 2.

The characters were, unfortunately, hit and miss for me.  I really enjoyed the minor characters, while I didn’t like the main ones.  Vanessa is one of those heroines who doesn’t see what’s going on right in front of her, and that really irked me.   Plus, her friends tried to get her to see reason at times, and she wouldn’t hear them out.  I guess she was just kind of dense, and at times, it was like the world revolved around her—and that type of heroine really bugs me.  I’m hoping she will become more mature in the next book because she  has great potential.  Her best friends were great though, especially Steffie and Blaine.  They were each quirky in their own way, and you could tell they really cared about what Vanessa was going through. 

So, let’s get to the guys.  First, there’s Zep—the amazing dancer who makes jaws drop all over the place.  He’s the kind of guy who should be on the cover of magazines, and he definitely has the charm and charisma to back up his good looks.  However, from the start, I got the feeling that his charm was fake, and it bugged me to see Vanessa fall straight for it.  But, I probably would have fallen for it, too, if he was as good looking as everyone says he is! Still, I could feel that he had secrets that he didn’t want discovered. 

Then there is Justin, another boy who has secrets.  He comes off as this big jerk who is a bit of a bully.  I liked him because he just seemed to tell the man to “Suck it,” and I love guys who are rebellious in the face of authority.  However, like Zep, I just didn’t trust him because he was obviously hiding something.  Still, when Vanessa describes him, I can’t help but get a bit swoony.  Add that to some of the smexy dreams Vanessa has about him, and I might be giving him another look.

Even though the story was slow, I still found myself lost in the hauntingly beautiful dance.  When Yelena described the world slipping away as the dance unfolds, I was just completely lost in the imagery.  I could see time stop as the dancers transcended reality and became almost dream-like in their beauty and grace.  Yelena’s words were beautiful and foreboding at the same time, and I fell straight into her macabre world.

So…survey says?

Would I recommend it to others? 

I would recommend it to YA fans who are looking for something different, who don’t mind pushing through slower moments to revel beautiful writing.  YA fans with a history or love of dance—you should definitely check it out.

Will I read the sequel?

 Yes, although it won’t be one of those that I pre-order and start reading the day it arrives.