Release Day Blitz and Giveaway: The Glittering Court by Richelle Mead

I am so excited that THE GLITTERING COURT by Richelle Mead releases today and that I get to share the news, along with a special giveaway!

If you haven’t yet heard about this wonderful book by author Richelle Mead, be sure to check out all the details below.

This blitz also includes a giveaway for a signed copy of the book and a $25 Sephora Gift Card courtesy of Richelle, Penguin Teen, and Rockstar Book Tours. So if you’d like a chance to win, enter in the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.

About The Book:

Title: THE GLITTERING COURT

Author: Richelle Mead

Pub. Date: April 5, 2016

Publisher: Razorbill

Format: Hardcover, eBook, and audiobook

Find it: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | Goodreads

The Selection meets Reign in this dazzling trilogy of interwoven novels about three girls on a quest for freedom and true love from #1 internationally bestselling author Richelle Mead.

"Brilliant and original, Mead’s new series starts off with a bang and will leave readers on the edge of their seats until the very end."

—School Library Journal

For a select group of girls, the Glittering Court offers a shot at a life they’ve only ever dreamed of, one of luxury, glamour, and leisure. To high-born Adelaide, whose wealthy family is forcing her into a loveless marriage, the Glittering Court represents something else: the chance to chart her own destiny, and adventure in an unspoiled, prosperous new land across the sea.

After a chance meeting with the dazzling Cedric Thorn, Adelaide poses as a servant to join the crop of impoverished girls he promises to transform into proper ladies. But her familiarity with upper class life comes with a price: she must hide her identity from her new friends, mysterious refugee Mira and fiery former laundress Tamsin, and most importantly, from Cedric himself—even though she’s falling in love with him. 

Everything begins to crumble when Cedric discovers Adelaide’s ruse, and she catches the eye of a powerful young governor, who wants her for a wife. She didn’t leave the gilded cage of her old life behind just to become someone else's property. But nothing is as daunting—or as wonderful—as the potent, forbidden attraction simmering between Adelaide and Cedric. One that, if acted on, would make them both outcasts in a wild, dangerous, uncharted world, and possibly lead them to their deaths.

Exclusive Excerpt:

About Richelle:

Richelle Mead has written over twenty-five novels for teens and adults. She is the author of the international #1 bestselling Vampire Academy series and its spinoff series, Bloodlines. Her recent standalone novel, Soundless, draws upon Chinese mythology and history, and her forthcoming series, The Glittering Court, follows the adventures of girls destined for arranged marriages in a fantasy world inspired by colonial America. A lifelong reader, Richelle has always had a particular fascination with mythology and folklore. When she can actually tear herself away from books (either reading or writing them), she enjoys bad reality TV, traveling, trying interesting cocktails, and shopping for dresses to wear on tour. She is a self-professed coffee addict, works in her pajamas, and has a passion for all things wacky and humorous. Originally from Michigan, Richelle now lives in Seattle, Washington, where she is hard at work on her next novel.

Website| Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads 

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a hardcover of THE GLITTERING COURT and a $25 Sephora Gift Card. US Only.

Ends on April 15th at Midnight EST!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

This is a book I thought sounded really good, but I didn't request it on either Edelweiss or Netgalley for some reason. But then I walked into the Barnes and Noble where I work part time and saw it sitting on the manager's desk one day.  I asked right away if I could have it, and I am so glad I did!  I loved this book.  It got 5 stars from me on  Goodreads.  So I guess I'd have to thank the bookstore where I work, as well as the publisher, Razorbill Books and Penguin Teen, for sending a review copy to them. 

This book is set in a world or time period similar to maybe our Ancient Rome.  There are two main characters, Laia and Elias.  Laia is a member of the Scholars, the people that were defeated by the Martials and now live pretty dangerous lives.  Never knowing if they could be accused of doing something against the emperor, or stolen and turned into slaves.  Elias is a soldier, one of the best, for the Martials.  He is what they call a Mask.  These soldiers wear silver masks, masks that as they continue on in their training and schooling, eventually settle onto their faces, growing to be attached.  Except for Elias.  Unlike what he should be doing, he takes his off every day, he may be one of the best in the academy, but he wants nothing more than to be far away from the empire and the horrible things that he has been a part of and watched as he grew up.  Laia has an older brother who draws things.  He goes off during the day instead of helping their grandparents with their healing treatments and Laia wonders what secrets he is keeping.  She sees the things he draws, pictures of people being punished with beatings, or being executed.  He also has drawings of weapons, weapons that he probably shouldn't have ever seen.  In fact, the night that Laia sees these drawings in his book, the Masks pay their family a visit.  Looking for the notebook of drawings.  In the scuffle their grandparents are killed, and as they go to take her brother as prisoner, it is alluded to that she will be taken and raped, or killed.  So when her brother tells her to run, she does.  Even though she feels like a coward afterwards for leaving him. 

Laia goes to the Resistance and asks for their help to try to break her brother out.  It turns out she has a bigger connection to them, her parents were part of the Resistance, a big part, before they were killed.  In order to save her brother, the leader gets Laia a position as a servant for the Commandant and asks her to spy.  Only life with the Commandant is a death threat every other minute.  One slave girl there already has an eye that was taken.  The Cook's face is horribly disfigured from some other punishment. And the first day Laia is there, she gets a beating.  But Laia does her best to stick with it, to find some piece of information that will not only help the Resistance in their fight, but also help them to get her brother out.

Elias has plans to run as soon as he graduates.  But those plans change when one of the Augers tells him that he has a choice.  The Augers know everything, and predict what will happen. But this one doesn't give Elias's plans away.  He only tells him that if he does run, he will become the type of person that he is trying to run from becoming.  And if he stays, he may have the chance to make things better.  Also right at this time Elias runs into Laia at his mother's house.  Not that his mother has any love for him.  She is this cruel Commandant, and she left him to die in the desert when he was a baby.  It was only his grandfather who found him and took him in when he was younger that has brought Elias to where he is now.  But Elias wants only to go back to the life with one of the Tribes that he knew at the beginning of his life.  Shortly after graduation, which Elias decides to stay, something called the Trials begin.  Four of the graduates are chosen to be possible successors to the current Emperor.  These Trials are horrific though.  They could die just from being in them.  And if they don't at least finish the trials, they will be killed for that.  They must win two of the four to be the final winner.  But there are some who seem willing to sabotage Elias's chance.  And then they are set up to fight and have to kill their own friends and comrades.

Together Elias and Laia will meet and in a way, have somewhat of a similar goal.  To escape the horrors of this place, hopefully alive.  While Laia's main thought is to survive only to save her brother's life, she will find that she can't actually trust those that she hopes can help her.  And Elias will learn that his closest friends may have things they have kept from him, and that they may not be able to understand what it is he wants.

Wow, I've said all that stuff, and I don't feel like I've given a very good description of the book.  It is soooooo much more than what I've said here.  The characters are so good, believable.  No instant-love, only some possible attraction.  Bad guys that even when given possible excuses for their reasons behind their evil, you still hate them.  All I know now is that I have to wait until there is a sequel, because I need to know what will happen next for Elias and Laia with the way the book left off. 

Review: End Times by Anna Schumacher

First, thanks to both Edelweiss and Razorbill for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  The premise sounded really good, as well as it definitely had a pretty neat looking cover.  While I liked the main story of the book, I had some issues with it.  But first let me tell you what it was about.

We kind of have 2 main characters, although there is a 3rd that we also get a point of view from in some of the chapters.  First we have Daphne.  Daphne has just finished a case where she had been accused of murdering her stepfather.  However the court realized, the truth was that she killed him in self defense as he went to rape her at knife-point.  She was able to get the knife away from him and stab him.  Unfortunately her mother doesn't believe the things that Daphne tells her about her husband, and so Daphne chooses to leave and go live with her Aunt and Uncle in Carbon County.  While they were never wealthy, she could always feel the love when she went there.  She doesn't tell them about the whole court case, figures it would only cause problems to start out like that.  Once she gets there, she finds her cousin Janie is pregnant.  We get some of the chapters from Janie's point of view, and while she is a major character, I feel like she's still a bit different from Daphne, and Owen, the other main character.  But Janie is important.  Her boyfriend, Doug, is kind of jerk.  Violent, and even tries to come on to Daphne when she first arrives.  He's pretty much a sleazy guy, and Janie is pretty nice from what we read.  She so deserves better.  Now, Janie's family is pretty religious.  So much that Janie believes she is meant to have the baby, that it is a blessing.  And so it is really interesting that when Daphne arrives in town there is a strange sound of trumpets, but no one knows where it is coming from.  So now people think maybe Daphne is something special.  And then, when her uncle calls out a geologist to where he thinks he has oil, she gets mad when the geologist is rude to her uncle.  So she grabs the dipstick out of the geologist's truck and sticks it in the ground where her uncle had said he thought there was oil.  And when she pulled it back out, there was oil there.  Now her aunt and uncle, who were so poor, her uncle out of work, living in a trailer, will be rich.  But her uncle, ever the religious man, wants to use the money to get the town back on its feet, before spending any of it on his own family.

Owen is the other main character.  He is a dirt-bike rider, a very good one, traveling around the country winning all kinds of competitions.  But he has more of a goal than just winning these and going professional circuit, he is looking for his past.  All he knows is that he was born on a commune of the Children of the Earth.  And in one town, he gets a hit.  Someone has heard that it used to be nearby, and there is a girl named Luna that also came from there.  He meets Luna. She has the same unique eyes as Owen, and is having the same dreams he has been having.  They leave together to try to find where the dreams are taking them.  And they end up in Carbon County.

All the characters' lives will connect, and it will all lead to a prophecy of the end times possibly coming true.

Like I said, the story is pretty good, I love the idea behind it.  But I had some problems with maybe how things were or maybe weren't really described?  I don't know how to say it.  It was a good read.  I wanted to know what was going to happen.  But it wasn't the best of this type of story I've ever read.  Just something about it.  By the end I was definitely involved with the characters and wanting to know what parts of the prophecy were going to happen, and how.  And I will be anxious to see what part Janie plays as the book continues in a sequel, as where it ends, she is kind of out of what would seem to be the main part of the prophecy.

Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff

First I have to say thank you to Razorbill Publishing and Netgalley for allowing me to read the e-galley of this title.  I have been a fan of Brenna Yovanoff since I read her first novel The Replacement, and then I got to meet her at a Maggie Stiefvater event in my hometown.  Maggie had two friends there, who were also authors, Brenna and Tessa Gratton.  I hadn't  heard of Tessa before, but I had read Brenna's book and was disappointed that I didn't know she would be there or I'd have brought my book to get autographed!  I also have enjoyed her book The Space Between, and have one from BEA that I have yet called The Curiosities:  A Collection of Stories, which also includes stories from Tessa Gratton and Maggie Stiefvater, and I got to meet them all together again at BEA this past summer!

But anyway, on to this particular book.  I was unsure at first what the actual story was going to be.  A ghost story, a serial killer mystery solved by a teen, or even just a plain old teen angst story.  Really, a little of all of these was in the story.  The main character is Hannah.  Her best friend Lillian, who died about 6 months ago, is now haunting her.  The death was caused by anorexia or at least some form of eating disorder.  Ever since then, Hannah has not been the same.  She comes out around people and smiles, but doesn't let them know what is going on inside.  Her old crowd of friends are still mostly friends, although one of them is really straying from Lillian's ways, and Hannah is less and less wanting to be around her.  Part of the problem for Hannah is that she is trying to figure out how much of the blame for Lillian's death can be put on her for either not making sure she got help, or even kind of helping her in small ways.
Along with the stress from this, it's been one of the hottest summers in her town, and there has been a murder of a young girl.  Hannah's aunt runs a photo processing place, about the only one left in town, and so of course the police use her store to develop their crime scene pictures.  Hannah sneaks a look at the photos before anything is released to the press, and she and Lillian see something that reminds them of a death from earlier on, that isn't necessarily being listed as part of the same crime.  And soon there is another girl found dead, with similar markings.  The killer has left all kinds of toys and stuff on the ground around the place where they leave the dead body.  Hannah and Lillian begin to be detectives and try to figure out what they can.  Now of course, what would a teen book be without some kind of romance?  A school bad boy, Finny, has caught Hannah's eye.  She's not sure why at first, he's trouble, and Lillian warns her to stay away from him.  But when he gets her bracelet back from another creep for her, she begins to see that maybe Finny isn't quite the boy everyone thinks he is.  In fact, she goes to his house, and learns a lot about him.
But, as Hannah starts to find more and more clues to the killer's identity, she even has a moment where she wonders if it might be Finny.  Especially when he is walking Hannah and her sister Ariel home, and they take a shortcut through the park, and end up walking right by where another girl's body has been dumped and left with the trinkets.
A lot of times I can get a list of possible suspects in my head as the story goes along, but this one I was in the dark until Hannah figured it out herself.  I think that is a good thing for the author to have done.  Says a little that you are surprised.  Although, I wonder if there could have been clues that I might find if I go back and read it again.  But that would require extra time, and giving up reading other e-galleys and ARCs and other books sitting around in my house waiting to be read.  So, that'll have to happen when I win the lottery or retire I guess.  But I definitely think this was a good read.  If you've read any other books by this author, you'll enjoy it.  And if you haven't, go ahead and read this, then go back and check out the others.  This will be published at the beginning of January, so put it on your TBR list.