Blog Tour: Hidden Huntress (The Malediction Trilogy #2) by Danielle L. Jensen

I have been honoured to have been picked as a blog stop for the Blog Tour of Hidden Huntress by Danielle L. Jensen for the second book in the Malediction Trilogy. I adore this series and cannot impress how much awesomeness is packed in the second instalment of this fabulous series. The first book, Stolen Songbird was wonderful (read my review here) and the Hidden Huntress doesn't fall far behind. The ending just blew me away! I have to stop giving everything away already and more of my fangirling will be coming soon in my review. But for now, I was given the opportunity to ask Danielle one question and I promptly asked her what I have always wanted to ask her. Why does this series have so much French influence? The tittles and the names are all French which adds a touch of whimsical to the atmosphere and here is what she had to say. However, before that, let's remind ourselves what Hidden Huntress has in store for us.

Title:Hidden Huntress
Series: The Malediction Trilogy
Author: Danielle L. Jensen
Publisher: Angry Robot Books, UK
Released: 2nd June, 2015 

Sometimes, one must accomplish the impossible.

Beneath the mountain, the king’s reign of tyranny is absolute; the one troll with the capacity to challenge him is imprisoned for treason. Cécile has escaped the darkness of Trollus, but she learns all too quickly that she is not beyond the reach of the king’s power. Or his manipulation.

Recovered from her injuries, she now lives with her mother in Trianon and graces the opera stage every night. But by day she searches for the witch who has eluded the trolls for five hundred years. Whether she succeeds or fails, the costs to those she cares about will be high.

To find Anushka, she must delve into magic that is both dark and deadly. But the witch is a clever creature. And Cécile might not just be the hunter. She might also be the hunted…

                          ***************************************************

I won’t speak for other writers, but from my personal experience, the question readers most often ask is, where I get my inspirations. What inspired me to write about trolls, or to make my setting underground, or as in the case of this post, why I used French names. Truth be told, I have sort of a love-hate relationship with the question. Love, because it is interesting for me to go back through my novels to try to remember why I chose a certain name or pushed my plot in a particular direction. Hate, because I rarely feel that I give the question a satisfactory answer. But I’m going to give it my best shot.

I like to think of my novels as massive daydreams that I’ve recorded on paper for other people to read. And like any other person, my daydreams are reflective of all that I’ve experienced in life, all I wish to experience, and a healthy dose of what I’m terrified of experiencing. They are collections of hundreds of different things I’ve come across in life, in books, on TV, or in the media that I’ve found interesting or compelling in some way. Of course, every daydream has an impetus. For Stolen Songbird, it was a dream I’d had about a beautiful city buried, but not destroyed, by rubble. The vision of this place stuck in my mind, and I began to daydream a story to fill it, plucking bits and pieces from my inspiration collection as I went.

One of those bits and pieces was my interest in the French Revolution, particularly the role of changing ideologies that happened during the Enlightenment. While I didn’t model the half-bloods’ revolution in exactly the same way – religion is notably absent – I pulled aspects such as the resentment of royal absolutism and privilege of the nobility, the desire for equality amongst social classes, and the view that the upper classes were living large while the rest of the citizens suffered, straight from history. Although not all of what has been said about Marie Antoinette is true, I had in mind the popularized vision of her in elaborate dresses, throwing parties, and eating cakes while the French people suffered famines, as I wrote certain scenes. Additionally, Cécile existed from the beginning as an opera singer, which immediately brought to my mind the long history of opera in France, the inspirations of which you will see much more of in Hidden Huntress. So needless to say, it was a fairly natural decision for me to use French names, titles, etc. for the novel. 

I love that Danielle is so candid with her readers. My review for Hidden Huntress will be following soon and keep you eyes peeled for this book is hitting the stores on the 2nd June, 2015 in the UK.

She is not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick

Today I', really pleases to have Marcus Sedgewisk over at Escapism from Reality. His latest book She is not Invisible hit the shelves last week and he will be talking about it.

If you don't know what this book is about, below is the blurb and more details

SHE IS NOT INVISIBLE by Marcus Sedgwick 
Laureth Peak's father is a writer. For years he's been trying, and failing, to write a novel about coincidence. His wife thinks he's obsessed, Laureth thinks he's on the verge of a breakdown.He's supposed to be doing research in Austria, so when his notebook shows up in New York, Laureth knows something is wrong.

On impulse she steals her mother's credit card and heads for the States, taking her strange little brother Benjamin with her. Reunited with the notebook, they begin to follow clues inside, trying to find their wayward father. Ahead lie challenges and threats, all of which are that much tougher for Laureth than they would be for any other 16-year old. Because Laureth Peak is blind.


I don't about anyone else, but it sure seems interesting.  Especially about the protagonist being blind as I think this will open a whole new world of perception. so when I had the opportunity to have MA
Marcus at my blog I had to ask him him about it. Here's what he had to say.

As I write, it’s only day one in the life of my new book, She Is Not Invisible, and already, one question seems to be rising up above the others: why did I choose to write with a blind protagonist?

It’s a good question, but one that is surprising in a way since we decided not to even mention that Laureth Peak is blind on the jacket copy. This was a deliberate choice, because if at all possible, I wanted to avoid the idea that this is a book ABOUT a blind girl. It’s not. It’s a book about coincidence and a writer’s obsession with that subject, in which the heroine just so happens to be blind. There’s a big difference between those two things.

I’d been working on this book, on and off, for five years before I decided to have the protagonist be blind. For some long and complicated reasons, I met a blind girl, and at that point, I thought no more than; would it be interesting to make Laureth blind? I think once I’d had that thought, though, it was always going to turn out that way. Of course, I knew at once that this was going to be a big challenge, but I had no idea how big until I started to do some really serious research. I read a lot of literature, fiction and non-fiction. I did obvious things like spend the day blindfolded. But none of these things really got me close, because they don’t teach you what it’s like to never have seen, and I had decided that I wanted Laureth to have been blind from birth.

So two years ago I made the first of a series of visits to a unique school called New College, in Worcester. This is a state boarding school for blind and VI students, and from that first visit on I realised two things. Firstly just what a big challenge I had set myself, and secondly, that if I was going to get anywhere near achieving it, I had come to the right place. That’s because the young people I met during my various trips were unbelievably honest, open, generous and patient with someone who started off by asking all the stupid questions they always get asked.

But the months went by and I kept speaking to my new friends there, and slowly I began to think that maybe I could pull this off after all.  I still don’t know what it’s like to have been blind from birth. How can you ever forget what colour is, to give just one example? But I was given an enormous helping hand by the generosity of the students of New College, and if I’ve got close to their experience at all, it’s through their help.

Why did I write with a blind protagonist? There’s another way of answering that, which is much shorter. Why not? Why wouldn’t I? I’ve written about all sorts of people, and since 1 person in 30 in the UK has some form of sight loss, it was probably about time I did.

She is not Invisible released on the 3rd of October, 2013 by Indigo.

The Weight Of Souls Blog Tour + Giveaway+ Excerpt

My blog has been very lucky to be able to host a stop for The Weight of Souls Blog Tour. I recently read The Weight of Souls and was impressed with the gripping story line and the addictive writing. So I’m really pleased to have Bryony Pearce with us today talking about ghosts and if she believes in them.

I read the book and I really enjoyed the story with it's Egyptian mythology to it's sweet love story.
Read my review here.

But before that have a look at the exciting new book by her.

Sixteen year old Taylor Oh is cursed: if she is touched by the ghost of a murder victim then they pass a mark beneath her skin. She has three weeks to find their murderer and pass the mark to them – letting justice take place and sending them into the Darkness. And if she doesn’t make it in time? The Darkness will come for her…
She spends her life trying to avoid ghosts, make it through school where she’s bullied by popular Justin and his cronies, keep her one remaining friend, and persuade her father that this is real and that she’s not going crazy.
But then Justin is murdered and everything gets a whole lot worse. Justin doesn’t know who killed him, so there’s no obvious person for Taylor to go after. The clues she has lead her to the V Club, a vicious secret society at her school where no one is allowed to leave… and where Justin was dared to do the stunt which led to his death.
Can she find out who was responsible for his murder before the Darkness comes for her? Can she put aside her hatred for her former bully to truly help him?
And what happens if she starts to fall for him?

I have to say the blurb itself had been scrambling to my hands on this book and I have to I was not disappointed. Click here to read a sample chapter to see how truly awesome this book is.

 Ok, I can keep rambling on about how much I liked the book. So read along to find out about Bryony’s experience with ghosts.

Do I believe in ghosts.  Don’t be silly …

Bryony Pearce, author of a ghost story, The Weight of Souls

First up, let’s get this out of the way, I’m Catholic.  I am also logical and fairly scientific in my approach (I did maths and biology at A-level as well as English literature, somehow my brain finds comfort in both).  I like to think that I am quite open minded.  I will listen to both sides of a debate.  I have even been known to change my opinion if presented with sufficiently compelling evidence.  A belief in ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night doesn’t fit well with the way that I think, it makes me uncomfortable to consider the possibility.

And yet …

As a teenager I was obsessed with ghost stories, I had books about real life hauntings, I loved to visit haunted places.  I wanted an encounter of my own.

I struggled a little with how that all fit in with my Catholicism then decided that God moves in mysterious ways and I didn’t know everything.  It was possible that there were some spirits that stuck around for a while after death before heading to their final destination.  And of course the Catholic church has no problem with Demonic presences. 

Then I grew up a bit.  Decided that perhaps these real life hauntings were not spirits, but more like footprints left in sand; the residue of a strong emotional experience replaying to sensitive minds.  Or perhaps, I thought after being exposed to certain scientific theories on space and time, they occur at thin places, where folds in space-time allow people to occasionally see through to something happening simultaneously but in a different time.

And yet …

I won’t touch a Ouija board.  I simply cannot bring myself to go near the things.  There was a short craze in sixth form.  For a while I observed the groups and entertained myself by working out who was doing the pushing.  Then I was banished from the room for bringing ‘negative energy’ so I hung out by myself until the sessions were over.

The Ouija board thing ended when one of the boys was ‘contacted’ by his dead father.  I still wonder, to this day, who, out of all our friends, would have been so cruel? 

Then I went to university. 

I read English literature at Corpus Christi College Cambridge, one of the older colleges in the university.  The oldest, Peterhouse, was founded in 1284, Corpus Christi was founded in 1352.

Corpus itself has an Old Court and a New Court.  This is new court.

My room in first year was in New Court at the top of I staircase above the library.  In third year it was opposite the chapel (this was basically the view from my room).

Go through a corridor to the left of the picture above and you come to Old Court.  During the day it was gorgeous (that’s me with my tongue out in the middle).

At night it was terrifying. 

In the nineties the staircases in Old Court had no bathrooms; if you wanted a shower, or to use the toilet, you had to put on your bunny slippers, cross the courtyard and go to the shower blocks.  At night the courtyard was pitch dark and always covered with a lowering mist.  Talk about atmosphere.

I never lived in Old Court, but my boyfriend did and so did some of my friends.

Several of them claimed to have seen and experienced things.  I never did. 

Then one night …

I had snuck my boyfriend into my room in New Court (it’s okay because we’re married now) and we were sleeping.  I woke up, a bit disoriented, and there was an old woman leaning over Andy. 

Initially I thought it was what I call a ‘leftover dream image’.  So I blinked a few times.  She was still there, resolutely refusing to fade, fingers stretching out to touch his sleeping face.   I was fully awake by this point, so I reached to touch her.  My hand went through her shoulder.

I screamed my head off.

When I opened my eyes again Andy was freaking out and she was gone.

I still don’t believe that what I saw was just a dream.  I know I was awake, very awake. 

Somehow I remained sceptical …

Andy’s third year room was in R staircase, in old court.  He rarely slept there and I rarely went in.  It was always cold and, frankly, creepy (and not in a ‘dirty socks’ sort of way).  My friend Jo, who claimed psychic tendencies, point blank refused to go near R staircase.  Despite the weight of good looking boys on R, she never went past the steps.

I didn’t think much of it, until Graduation.

It was our very last day in college and of course we were all taking photographs of everything we could; we didn’t know when we would be back to this place that held so many happy memories. 

It was only when I got my photographs developed that I saw it.  Andy’s room.  Glowing.  Here is the photograph.

The sun, in case you are thinking it, is above the building you see, not opposite.  There is nothing available to reflect across and none of the adjacent windows have caught the same reflection, if reflection it is.  Only Andy’s room.  It doesn’t matter which angle you take the picture from, that glow remains right there.

Does that mean that Andy’s creepy cold room had always housed a non-corporeal presence? 

Ask me if I believe in ghosts and I will dither.  It doesn’t sit comfortably with the way that I think to admit that actually yes, I do think that there is something out there.  Do the dead walk? Is it something else: a hole in space-time, a footprint in the sand?  I don’t know. 

Call it what you like, but I believe in ghosts.

Chilling. *shudders*. Okay to commensurate this blog tour Bryony is hosting an awesome tourwide giveaway. Click here to take part and win a ginormous amount of cool goodies.

To find out more about Bryony and her work, please visit her website www.bryonypearce.co.uk  follow her on Twitter @BryonyPearce or like her facebook page BryonyPearceAuthor

The Weight of Souls releases on the 6th of August by Strange Chemistry Books.

Blog Tour: iD (The Machine Dynasty #2) by Madeline Ashby

Today my blog plays host to the Blog Tour for Madeline Ashby’s new book in The Machine Dynasty Series, iD.


iD is about a self-replicating humanoid and that line was enough to sell me. Read the blurb below to get a taster of what Id is about.

Javier is a self-replicating humanoid on a journey of redemption. 

Javier's quest takes him from Amy's island, where his actions have devastating consequences for his friend, toward Mecha where he will find either salvation... or death.

ID is the second book in Madeline’s The Machine dynasty Series and it has been eagerly anticipated by fans.

 Hence I’m really pleased to have Madeline over on the Escapism from Reality to talk about how female Sci-Fi writers are rare and far between while dystopian (which is pretty much straddling the line between fantasy and Sci-Fi) has so many female writers and no one bats an eyelash. So now, I’ll shut up and let Madeline say her piece.



 I think there are dystopias out there that can be safely categorized as SF. I mean, all that's required is that their world hinges primarily on scientific endeavour. If your dystopia is about a group of girls who have to compete for a prince's hand in marriage, but the tools in their arsenal are gene therapy and chromosome splicing, then yeah, that's SF. If science plays a role in the fiction, it's science fiction. There might be other genre elements as well, like horror or comedy or romance, but if your plot revolves around the consequences of scientific endeavour, it's at least partially SF.

 I think that YA dystopia draws a lot of female writers because a lot of female writers made their names there. It's an easy category to see yourself in. There are so many other women there. It's a pretty safe bet, if you're a good writer. Also, your agent will always want to represent it, because it's a proven market. Selling SF, or selling high fantasy, or selling any other genre, really, is much harder for them and they have to really think about how to package the manuscript in the most appealing way.

 But in general, I think that women are writing about dystopias more frequently now because the world is more dystopian for women in general. I mean, take a look at the latest legislation in Texas on a woman's right to do what she wants with her own body. Or TSA officers telling young girls what to wear. Or women getting rape threats because they talk about misogyny online. That's some pretty fucking dark dystopian shit.

And the fact is that women have been experiencing that dark dystopian shit for years and years and years. It's nothing new. Women have been closely observed and told what to wear and told how to act and treated like property for thousands of years. For example, the Salic and Burgundian law codes ascribed less monetary value to a woman's body than to a man's, when assessing the punishment for a crime. To this day, American women earn an average of 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns.

Our lives, and our work, are simply considered less valuable. So the next time someone asks you why women write so many dystopias, or why they're so good at it, tell them it's because women have a lifetime of experience living in them. They have experience with actual, legal, cultural, and physical oppression. It's not fiction for them. It's reality.

Thank you so much Madeline for dropping by and talking about such an ignored matter. I truly believe that just that the dystopian genre is so popular with female writers and readers as we all have experienced it some manner or the other.

iD releases 25th of June, 2013 by Angry Robot.

 Preorder iD on Amazon

Zenn Blog-a-palooza Tour and Giveaway (INT)

Hello my fellow escapists,

Today, on the blog we have the wonderful Christian Schoon dropping by and talking about his exciting new book, Zenn Scarlett. I’m sure you have heard about it if you have not (which I find hard to believe) then keep reading.

Firstly, feast your eyes on the lush cover and read the blurb below.

Zenn Scarlett is a bright, determined, occasionally a-little-too-smart-for-her-own-good 17-year-old girl training hard to become an exoveterinarian. That means she’s specializing in the treatment of exotic alien life forms, mostly large and generally dangerous. Her novice year of training at the Ciscan Cloister Exovet Clinic on Mars will find her working with alien patients from whalehounds the size of a hay barn to a baby Kiran Sunkiller, a colossal floating creature that will grow up to carry a whole sky-city on its back. But after a series of inexplicable animal escapes from the school and other near-disasters, the Cloister is in real danger of being shut down by a group of alien-hating officials. If that happens, Zenn knows only too well the grim fate awaiting the creatures she loves. Now, she must unravel the baffling events plaguing her school, before someone is hurt or killed, before everything she cares about is ripped away from her and her family forever. To solve this mystery – and live to tell about it – Zenn will have to put her new exovet skills to work in ways she never imagined, and in the process learn just how powerful compassion and empathy can be.

I was sold when I laid my eyes on this beauty.

Read on to know what Christian has to say about Zenn.

THE UNEXPLORED TERRITORY

The heroine of my book is a bit of an outsider. Let me rephrase: Zenn Scarlett grew up as the only kid in a science-based cloister that provides medical treatment for huge, often potentially deadly alien animals. Oh, and the kids she might otherwise have associated with? The ones in the nearby town? They all think she’s totally weird because she hangs around these alien life forms, which they refer to as “monsters.” So, outsider is putting it mildly. 

Also not exactly helpful in the social contact department: the Ciscan Cloister Exovet Clinic and training school is housed in a sprawling compound surrounded by a thick, high mud-brick wall. Did I mention we’re on Mars here? Yes. The deep end of the spectacular canyon system known as the Valle Marinaris. The mud-brick wall was originally built, hundreds of years ago, to ensure that in case an animal escaped its cage or enclosure, they would still be contained within the walls. But now, as the struggling Earther colonies on Mars teeter on the verge of total collapse, the walls serve a different purpose than keeping the animals in: they keep the roving outlaw bands out. 

And all of this makes it hard for Zenn-the-outcast to understand when one towner boy, her age, kind of good-looking, kind of self-absorbed and cocky, suddenly takes in interest in her. Zenn has rules about making friends outside the cloister, though. You see, the people she’s loved most in her life have either left… or been taken from her. So, she’s a little gun-shy when it comes to any sort of emotional attachment. And, being scientifically inclined, she tells herself to always weigh the cost vs the benefit of any new relationship. But Liam Tucker, even though he’s a towner, even though towners as a group hate everything Zenn and the Ciscan Cloister stand for… Liam seems to be different. He seems willing to overlook Zenn’s outsider status, and her association with alien “monsters.” He seems genuinely interested in reaching out, finding common ground. 

For Zenn, Liam’s attentions are both confusing and distracting. But as Zenn throws herself into pursuing her dream of becoming an exovet, she also finds herself coping with a mind-boggling array of challenges and issues, personal and academic, from the slightly annoying to the totally life-threatening. And she simply cannot afford to be either confused or distracted. Of course, Zenn knew her novice year of training would be tough. She knew she had a massive amount to learn about a whole universe of astonishing life forms. But she never imagined that learning about the unexplored territory of her own heart would be toughest subject of all.

CHRISTIAN SCHOON BIO

Born in the American Midwest, Christian started his writing career in earnest as an in-house writer at the Walt Disney Company in Burbank, California. He then became a freelance writer working for various film, home video and animation studios in Los Angeles. After moving from LA to a farmstead in Iowa several years ago, he continues to freelance and also now helps re-hab wildlife and foster abused/neglected horses.  He acquired his amateur-vet knowledge, and much of his inspiration for the Zenn Scarlett series of novels, as he learned about - and received an education from - these remarkable animals.

Find Christian on Twitter and his Blog.

Are you thrumming with excitement yet?

 Do you want to lay your hands on this?

Zenn comes out on the 2nd of May, 2013 by Strange Chemistry.

 Order now on Amazon catch it on GoodReads.

Or else, you can take your chances and take part in the giveaway below to win a copy of Zenn Scarlett. The best thing of all is Strange Chemistry are kindly giveing the book away internationally. So this giveaway is International. Yippee!

a Rafflecopter giveaway