Lisa Loves Literature: Sandy Hall

Showing posts with label Sandy Hall. Show all posts

Friday, July 12, 2019

Blog Tour Review with Giveaway: The Shortest Distance Between Love and Hate by Sandy Hall

Book info:
Title: The Shortest Distance Between Love and Hate
Author: Sandy Hall
Published by: Swoon Reads
Publication date: July 9th 2019
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Source: E-galley from Xpresso Book Tours which did not influence my opinion
My rating: 4 stars

Synopsis:

A teen girl starting at a new school is torn between long-held loyalties and a bright new love in this irresistible new YA contemporary romance from the author of A Little Something Different.

Paisley is really looking forward to college. She is ready to take charge of her destiny and embrace some new experiences! Finding a hot guy to make out with at her first ever college party seems like a great start…until her best friend informs her that mystery guy is actually Carter Schmitt, Paisley’s sworn enemy who basically ruined their lives in middle school.

So much for new people and exciting new experiences. Oh well. Paisley will just pretend he doesn’t exist. Of course that would be easier if Carter, AKA her super-hot-sworn-enemy, hadn’t ended up in threeof her classes AND the same work study. Is it too late to rethink this college thing?

Sandy Hall, author of A Little Something Different and A Prom to Remember, is heading back to college in this sweet and quirky contemporary romance.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes and Noble / iBooks / Kobo

My Review:

I picked this up and was immediately sucked in and loving it! There was so much fun with the back and forth between Paisley and Carter. Now, I feel like Paisley really got to taking it too far, but then there were times that I think Carter took his side too seriously or emotionally. I like that in the end, when it really counted, Paisley came out and told the truth about things that were her fault and helped Carter out. I get where he was upset with what was going on in his life, but his whole "hating excuses" thing as a reason for why he did so many things was a little irritating. Both of them had a lot of issues to deal with, and made a lot of bad decisions. But you know what, to me, that made it so realistic for how people really are. I'd say this was a good book, I didn't adore it as much as A Prom to Remember, but it definitely kept me reading and turning pages just to see who would finally give in and figure out how to deal with the situation properly.

Author Bio:

I’m a teen librarian from New Jersey where I was born and raised. I have a BA in Communication and a Master of Library and Information Science from Rutgers University. When I’m not writing, or teen librarian-ing, I enjoy reading, slot machines, marathoning TV shows, and long scrolls through Tumblr. A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT is my first novel.

Website / Goodreads / Twitter

GIVEAWAY!

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Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Lisa's Looking Foward To #21 - July 9th, 2019

Back to joining up with the Waiting on Wednesday Posts, and the Can't Wait Wednesday posts hosted by Wishful Endings. This week there are five on my list.

From my ARC list for July 9th:

I loved A Prom to Remember by this author, so I'm signed up to read and review this for a tour next week. Look for my review to be posted a week from this Friday.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

A teen girl starting at a new school is torn between long-held loyalties and a bright new love.

Paisley is really looking forward to college. She is ready to take charge of her destiny and embrace some new experiences! Finding a hot guy to make out with at her first ever college party seems like a great start . . . until her best friend informs her that mystery guy is actually Carter Schmitt, Paisley's sworn enemy who basically ruined their lives in middle school.

So much for new people and exciting new experiences. Oh well. Paisley will just pretend he doesn't exist. Of course that would be easier if Carter, AKA her super-hot-sworn-enemy, hadn't ended up in three of her classes AND the same work study. Is it too late to rethink this college thing?

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

This one sounds pretty unique!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli's Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and A. S. King's Still Life with Tornado, this story of parallel time lines cleverly explores how our choices can change and shape us--as well as the ways in which choices don't change the core of our being at all.

When Chris Schweitzer takes a hit of whippets and passes out face first on the cement, his nose isn't the only thing that changes forever. Instead of staying home with his friends for the last summer after high school, he's shipped off to live with his famous physicist but royal jerk of a father to prove he can "play by the rules" before Dad will pay for college.

Or . . . not.

In an alternate time line, Chris's parents remain blissfully ignorant about the accident, and life at home goes back to normal--until it doesn't. A new spark between his two best (straight) friends quickly turns Chris into a (gay) third wheel, and even worse, the truth about the whippets incident starts to unravel. As his summer explodes into a million messy pieces, Chris wonders how else things might have gone. Is it possible to be jealous of another version of yourself in an alternate reality that doesn't even exist?

With musings on fate, religion, parallel universes, and the best way to eat a cinnamon roll, Me Myself & Him examines how what we consider to be true is really just one part of the much (much) bigger picture.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

I won an ARC of this from Bookish First and hope to read and possibly get my review up this coming Sunday.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.

It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Sounds like a really good story!

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

A dark, romantic YA suspense novel with an SF edge and plenty of drama, layering the secrets we keep and how appearances can deceive, from the New York Times bestselling author.

In this tiny, terrifying town, the lost are never found. When Araceli Flores Harper is sent to live with her great-aunt Ottilie in her ramshackle Victorian home, the plan is simple. She'll buckle down and get ready for college. Life won't be exciting, but she'll cope, right?

Wrong. From the start, things are very, very wrong. Her great-aunt still leaves food for the husband who went missing twenty years ago, and local businesses are plastered with MISSING posters. There are unexplained lights in the woods and a mysterious lab just beyond the city limits that the locals don't talk about. Ever. When she starts receiving mysterious letters that seem to be coming from the past, she suspects someone of pranking her or trying to drive her out of her mind. To solve these riddles and bring the lost home again, Araceli must delve into a truly diabolical conspiracy, but some secrets fight to stay buried...

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

This one sounds like a good romance.

Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book.

When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They're all—or mostly all—excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It's a disaster! And as if that wasn't enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn't he realize what a terrible idea that is?

Nina considers her options.

1. Completely change her name and appearance. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.)
2. Flee to a deserted island. (Hard pass, see: coffee).
3. Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Already doing it.)

It's time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn't convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It's going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.

Sound good? Add to Goodreads HERE.

Final Thoughts:
Have you read any of these yet? Are they on your TBR? And hey, while you're here, you should go try to win some of my ARCs from Cleaning Up My TBR Post HERE. The US only giveaway is open till Friday at midnight, and this week I added some 2019 ARCs that can be one of your two choices.

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Top 10 of 2018: New or New-to-Me Authors with Giveaway

So, guess what, I found another blog hosting a Top 10 of 2018 Event! So, I'm joining in, and on the days I have already done the topic they're doing, I'll do the ones I missed on the days I already did something different, or add one of the original top 10s that might not be listed if I'm not a fan of one of the days. This one is hosted by Kimberly Faye Reads, so click on her blog name to go join in! Here are the days scheduled:

Today's topic is the top 10 new or new-to-me authors I read in 2018. I think all of my books are authors that are new to me, not new. Seven are romance, and three are teen. Here is my list, and in no particular order as usual, other than I've separated the teen first, followed by the romance.

1.

A Prom to Remember was the first book I've read by Sandy Hall, although I do have a copy of her book A Little Something Different still sitting on my TBR shelf to be read.

2.

Star-Crossed was the first book I've read by Pintip Dunn, even though I have been hearing about her awesome books for so long! But now that I've read one, I'm hooked, and can't wait to read more!

3.

The first book I've read by Maria V. Snyder was Navigating the Stars, and I loved it! She is another author I've been hearing about forever it seems like. And I have to say her fans were right!

4.

I have been following Meghan Quinn on social media for awhile, but I first got to read her this year as part of a tour for her book Three Blind Dates. Not only is she hilarious on social media, but her sense of humor totally is included in all of her books. But she can also make you cry, as a couple other series I read by her this summer made me do. Also, I got to meet her at Book Bonanza this summer!

I fell in love with Drumline by Stacy Kestwick, probably in part because the main love interest had a dachshund and so there were some wiener jokes in there that all dachshund owners love to tell. Of course now I love following her on social media as well, and need more books from her!

6.

Again I actually got started reading J. Kenner with a blog tour for her Man of the Month series, starting with the 3rd one, Need You Now. I then got to meet her at Book Bonanza as well, and she asked me if I'd read her Stark series, which I hadn't and so she gave me a copy of the first one in that series to try out. I still need to post my review of it, but I loved it!

So, I totally fell in love with Carmen Jenner after reading her book Cake. Then I read another book by her, Bittersweet, and she is now one of my most MUST meet authors!

8.

So, I knew I might get to meet J.A. Huss at Book Bonanza, so I listened to the audio of one of her books, Taking Turns. At first I wasn't sure how I'd end up feeling overall about her, but I loved the book by the end, and now am a big fan. And yes, I did get to meet her!

Emma Hart is another author I discovered through blog tours, and like Carmen Jenner above, she is now one of my MUST meet authors, and totally auto-buy. I started by reading Four Day Fling, and now I am in love with her writing!

10.

I first discovered Michelle Mankin at the Kinky in Kansas City Romance Author convention last spring. I loved her book that I bought at the time, Rock F*ck Club, and was very excited to get to see her again at Book Bonanza in the summer.

So, those are my top 10 new-to-me authors of 2018.

I've got two more entries from this week, and if you check them out, there are two more giveaways: Top 10 Favorite Books of 2018, and Top 10 Favorite Covers of 2018.

And here is today's giveaway!

Giveaway:
Unfortunately, due to prices on these books, I am only going to be able to do e-books from Amazon if I want to do all the giveaways I have planned for this week. So you can pick any e-book from any of the above authors with a few exceptions: For J. Kenner you need to pick a book from her Man of the Month series, for Maria V. Snyder, you can only choose Navigating the Stars, and unfortunately, due to the prices again, I am not including any books by Sandy Hall or Pintip Dunn in this giveaway. I am doing two winners though, so two people will get to pick their e-books. And, each winner gets to spend up to $5. So if one book you want from one of the authors is $3.99, you could pick a $.99 one as well. If one is $2.99, you could pick a $1.99 as well. Your choice! Just enter the rafflecopter below!

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Thursday, April 26, 2018

Blog Tour Review with Giveaway: A Prom to Remember by Sandy Hall

Book info:
Title: A Prom to Remember
Author: Sandy Hall
Published by: Swoon Reads
Publication date: April 24th, 2018
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
My rating: 5 stars

Synopsis:

Love it or hate it, you’ll never forget it. In this heart-warming novel, Swoon Reads star, Sandy Hall, explores a classic high school celebration, capturing every relatable and hilarious teen milestone along the way.

Cora: Dating Perfect Boyfriend Jamie. Has NO IDEA how to break up with him…

Paisley: Anti-prom. Somehow nominated her anxiety-ridden best friend for prom king…

Henry: Hates social situations. Invited to prom by the most popular girl in school. SEND HELP!

Otis: Half of one of the cutest couples in his class. Not quite ready for a post-prom hotel room…

Lizzie: Shy. Excited to go to prom. With a boy. Whose name she doesn’t know.

Cameron: Loner. Over high school. Just wants to meet the mysterious girl who’s been leaving him notes…

Jacinta: Unnamed Nerd Girl #3. Determined to become the star of her own life, starting with prom…

Chosen by readers like you for Macmillan’s young adult imprint Swoon Reads, A Prom to Remember, from Sandy Hall (author of A Little Something Different), is a funny and cinematic look at the biggest dance of every high schooler’s life.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes and Noble / iBooks / Kobo

My Review:
This is another story that I feel is perfect for the teens of today. While this is my first book I've actually read by this author, I've had one sitting on my TBR shelf, and now I'm excited to get around to reading it. This story had such an amazing range of characters and situations. It reminded me a little of the recent movie Blockers. It also is a book I will recommend at the bookstore, and to my students, for anyone who enjoyed Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Right off the bat, I personally connected with Jacinta. In high school, I was Unnamed Nerd Girl #3. I don't know how anyone in high school, other than the few people I hung out with remember me enough to friend me on Facebook these days. I don't feel like I got the type of end of the year/prom experience that Jacinta ends up with in the conclusion of the story. Then, there was a story that I think Paisley told, about why women are called "chicks". Now, I googled it. I don't find a story anywhere like what she told, but if it's true, I can't use that anymore. Finally, both the movie Blockers, and Love, Simon really got me started thinking about the things we don't think about with gay teens. Like for instance, the whole hotel room after prom is something I remember the drama of when I was watching shows like Beverly Hills 90210 (the original). And how it meant sex, the first time for the girl usually. It was touched on in Blockers as well. But you, well, me, I guess I just didn't ever think about how the first time for sex for gay teens is going to be just as scary as it is for hetero. I'm sorry if that is wrong, but that is how my brain worked. I've now got a clue, and my mind is getting more and more open about just how things are basically the same for all teens on those types of aspects, it is just how they are treated by other people. So Otis and Luke's story really was one that I appreciated reading. And boy, I really did love Luke. I also loved Henry. It's rare I think, that we get such a story about a teen who has the social anxiety that Henry has, where to most people, they seem pretty normal. Usually when we have stories about teens like that, everyone tends to know or think that they are weird. So for Henry to be like he was, well, it was good. I loved the friendship between him and Paisley as well. I loved Paisley's prom shirt that she made when she got asked to prom.

This story just made me smile. I loved it, can't wait to order it for my school library!

Author Bio:

I’m a teen librarian from New Jersey where I was born and raised. I have a BA in Communication and a Master of Library and Information Science from Rutgers University. When I’m not writing, or teen librarian-ing, I enjoy reading, slot machines, marathoning TV shows, and long scrolls through Tumblr. A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT is my first novel.

Website / Goodreads / Twitter

GIVEAWAY!

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Friday, October 16, 2015

Promo Interview Post with Giveaway: Signs Point to Yes by Sandy Hall

Book Details:

Signs Point to Yes by Sandy Hall
Published by: Swoon Romance
Publication date: October 20th 2015
Genres: Romance, Young Adult

Synopsis:
The author of A Little Something Different brings you the most adorkable romance ever.

Jane, a superstitious fangirl, takes an anonymous babysitting job to avoid an unpaid internship with her college-obsessed mom. The only problem? She’s babysitting the siblings of her childhood friend and new crush, Teo.

Teo doesn’t dislike Jane, but his best friend Ravi hates her, and is determined to keep them apart. So Teo’s pretty sure his plans for a peaceful summer are shot. His only hope is that his intermittent search for his birth father will finally pan out and he’ll find a new, less awkward home. Meanwhile, at Jane’s house, her sister Margo wants to come out as bisexual, but she’s terrified of how her parents will react.

In a summer filled with secrets and questions, even Jane’s Magic 8 ball can’t give them clear answers, but Signs Point to Yes.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24464110-signs-point-to-yes?ac=1

Purchase:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.ca/Signs-Point-Yes-Sandy-Hall/dp/125006600X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1438357642&sr=8-2&keywords=Signs+Point+to+Yes
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/signs-point-to-yes-sandy-hall/1121081823?ean=9781250066008

Author Interview:

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1. What does your writing process look like? Do you know the whole story when you start? Or do you just start writing and go with it (seat of the pants writing)? If you plan it out, how do you do that? Outline, note cards, post-it notes, etc.?

I am a very serious planner. I’ve tried writing by the seat of my pants but it feels really disorganized to me. I like to lay out chapters and scenes with index cards before I start and while I work on those, usually the characters start talking to each other and lines of dialogue start popping up. That’s when I know I’m ready to start writing. I definitely like to have an idea of the ending and what I’m writing towards.

2. How do you come up with your ideas for your stories?

It really depends on the book. I like when a character shows up in my head with a story they really want me to tell. That’s the ideal situation but it doesn’t always happen that way. Usually for me I have some vague plot that I want to pursue and I start thinking about it. Then I like to talk about it and jot ideas down. (I have a couple of friends who are very patient and willing to help during that part of the process.) Where ideas come from is all very abstract though. There’s no clear answer, they just sort of pop up!

3. How long have you been writing?

Not very long actually. I only really got into a few years ago. I failed a writing course in college and believed for a long time that writing just wasn’t for me. But then I started writing fanfiction several years ago and gained a lot of confidence that way.

4. What tips do you have for aspiring writers?

Keep writing! Don’t give up! I know it’s trite and what everyone says, but that’s because it’s true.

5. How important are names in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds, or the meaning? Do you have any name choosing resources you recommend?

I love this question! I’m so happy you asked. My sister is 11 years older than me, so I was still in high school when she was pregnant with her first son. She had tons of baby name books and I became absolutely OBSESSED with them. I bought a whole bunch for myself and I would use them to name people on The Sims. Fast forward to now when I get to name characters and it feels like I’ve been training for this for years! I don’t tend to go by what names mean. I like to keep in mind style and how they sound. I use the website Nameberry.com a LOT because it tends to list names in categories rather than just alphabetically. But I do spend a lot of time thinking about names and making sure that they represent the character and provide the right tone.

6. A fun question: Since this books is about a superstitious fangirl, do you have any superstitions that you have to stick to, and what are you a fangirl for?

I still can’t step on a crack! No matter how aware I am of the fact that it will not break my mother’s back, it just seems like a bad thing to do. As for fangirling, Darren Criss all the way.

Author Bio: