Blog Tour Review with Giveaway: The Lantern's Ember by Colleen Houck

Book info:

Title:  The Lantern's Ember 
Author:  Colleen Houck
Genre:  YA paranormal
Release Date:  September 11th, 2018
Publisher:  Delacorte Press
Source:  ARC received at ALA Summer 2018, which did not influence my opinions in any way.
My rating:  4 stars

Synopsis:

Welcome to a world where nightmarish creatures reign supreme.

Five hundred years ago, Jack made a deal with the devil. It’s difficult for him to remember much about his mortal days. So, he focuses on fulfilling his sentence as a Lantern—one of the watchmen who guard the portals to the Otherworld, a realm crawling with every nightmarish creature imaginable. Jack has spent centuries jumping from town to town, ensuring that nary a mortal—or not-so-mortal—soul slips past him. That is, until he meets beautiful Ember O’Dare. 

Seventeen, stubborn, and a natural-born witch, Ember feels a strong pull to the Otherworld. Undeterred by Jack’s warnings, she crosses into the forbidden plane with the help of a mysterious and debonair vampire—and the chase through a dazzling, dangerous world is on. Jack must do everything in his power to get Ember back where she belongs before both the earthly and unearthly worlds descend into chaos.

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, The Book Depository


 
My Review: 
This book was one of my unicorn ARCs to hopefully get when I attended ALA in New Orleans this past June, because I really enjoyed her other book that I'd read in the past.  Getting a hold of this one made my day. And when I finally picked it up to read, I was not disappointed!  Houck has created a beautiful world, or should I say, "Otherworld", with this story.  I loved how she wove in details of well-known fairy tales and legends, along with creating new background stories or even giving more life to characters only touched on with our modern day recountings of these legends and tales.  Not only did we get legends and fairy tales and monsters, but actual historical events were sprinkled throughout.  I always have been intrigued by the whole Roanoke Colony  mystery, and we got a unique new story for that.  And then there was a trip into the Salem witch trials that also got its own retelling.  

I mentioned that it was a beautiful world, and that was so much from the descriptions of this place, as well as the thought out mythology and unique takes on the creatures.  At times it was very much like a kind of Alice in Wonderland world, but with witches and vampires and the boogeyman.  Then there was Jack, a Lantern, as in Jack-o-Lantern, or even might call him the Headless Horseman.  While I've read other tales that may have given you a bit of sympathy for this person, I fell in love with Jack in this book, and wished that he could actually be with his Ember, the witch who everyone seemed to be after.  Another point in the book I felt as if it was reminiscent of Wizard of Oz, and I was on the edge of my seat as I read, waiting to find out who was this "man behind the curtain" going to really turn out to be.  There were little clues sprinkled throughout the story, but it all went in a pretty unique way that I was kept hanging on and wondering until it was all wrapped up very neatly.  

A great new paranormal, fantastical fairy tale retelling that I will be recommending to customers at the store where I work, and purchasing for the students at my library.

About the Author:
 

New York Times Bestselling author Colleen Houck is a lifelong reader whose literary interests include action, adventure, paranormal, science fiction, and romance. When she’s not busy writing, she likes to spend time chatting on the phone with one of her six siblings, watching plays, and shopping online. Colleen has lived in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, California, and North Carolina and is now permanently settled in Salem, Oregon with her husband and a huge assortment of plush tigers.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Goodreads | YouTube | Instagram 


Giveaway:

• 3 winners will receive a finished copy of THE LANTERN'S EMBER, US Only 

 
  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

9/3/2018- Captivated Reading- Review

9/4/2018- Jrsbookreviews- Review

9/5/2018- Portrait of a Book- Review

9/6/2018- YA Books Central- Interview

9/7/2018- Zach's YA Reviews- Review

Week Two:

9/10/2018- Such A Novel Idea- Review

9/11/2018- Lisa Loves Literature- Review

9/12/2018- Wishful Endings- Interview

9/13/2018- The Bookish Libra- Review

9/14/2018- Here's to Happy Endings- Review

Week Three:

9/17/2018- The Desert Bibliophile- Review

9/18/2018- Smada's Book Smack- Review

9/19/2018- Book-Keeping- Review

9/20/2018- A Dream Within A Dream- Review

9/21/2018- A Court of Coffee and Books- Review

Week Four:

9/24/2018- Do You Dog-ear?- Review

9/25/2018- Savings in Seconds- Review

9/26/2018- Book Briefs- Review

9/27/2018- Pacific Northwest Bookworm- Review

9/28/2018- Two Chicks on Books- Excerpt

Promo Post with Author Interview: Parasite Life by Victoria Dalpe

Book info:

Title:  Parasite Life
Author:  Victoria Dalpe
Genre:  YA Paranormal, Vampires
Release Date:  October 10th, 2017
Publisher:  ChiTeen

Synopsis: 

Parasite Life is a totally unique spin on the vampire genre. In Victoria Dalpe’s compelling debut, seventeen-year-old Jane DeVry shares a house in a small New Hampshire town with a mother suffering from a mysterious condition whose symptoms include mysterious wounds and sudden bouts of screaming. When the friendship of a new student at school awakens new desires in her, Jane sets out to learn who she is, beginning an odyssey that takes her first into her mother’s old journal, and then to the art scene in contemporary Manhattan, in search of a father she has never known. Smart, gripping, and possessed of real emotional depth, Parasite Life invokes the traditions of the Gothic while taking the form boldly into the twenty-first century.

 

Author Interview:

  

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, notecards, post-it-notes, etc.?

Definitely lean toward the seat of my pants style. My favorite thing is to just start and see where something goes, and I employ that technique a lot with short fiction. A novel needs a little more of a skeleton to hang the meat on though, and so I had a very loose outline for Parasite Life, just a few road marks of 'this needs to happen, then this, and this is how it ends' etc.  I use the desktop sticky notes on my mac, and some handwritten notes mostly. But not much more than that honestly. The rough draft for PL took me six to eight months to write total.

2.  How do you come up with your ideas for your stories? All over really, I read a lot, and watch a ton of movies/TV. I find a lot of inspiration in the story not told, or a deviation of the thing I am watching, reading, listening to. PL is essentially a response to how often the more unpleasant or blatantly coercive/rapey qualities in vampires get glossed over. (Looking at you Vampire Diaries) I went to school for art, and still paint, and I find inspiration looking at artwork a lot too. There are good ideas everywhere. I wish I did something with even 1/100th of the ideas I pick up just wandering around. 

 

3.  How long have you been writing? I've always written, but it was usually very personal, and more for me than for others. In high school I wrote a lot, and had a few friends who liked to read my stuff, but past that, I was private about it. In my twenties I wrote a bit here and there, but I was busy and worked in museums and was very social. It was when I left NYC and was figuring out my next career move that I decided to really take my writing seriously. I took a few courses, to get more comfortable workshopping, and then I just started submitting stuff! I lucked out because the very first story I submitted "Vulture" was picked up and published in an anthology. So I took that as a good sign and kept going with it. 

 
4.  What tips do you have for aspiring writers? The obvious one is to write. But everyone says that. I think experimenting with styles and lengths, play around with writing some flash fiction (under 1000 words) or drabble fiction (under 100 words) because it forces you to be concise. You have to treat all the words as precious. It's a good exercise and there are a lot of places that publish (and some pay) for micro fiction. So you can get experimental and weird, and then take a risk of submitting and trying to get published. My other advice would be to get good at finishing things, finish the story, give it a polish, have it ready to submit. Start something new. Keep doing that and you will have a body of work before you know it. And then when you go looking for open calls for submissions etc. you have things ready to go.
 
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?  They aren't super important for me personally. I think it is important that they fit the character and gives the reader more of an idea of them. For Parasite Life, I always like the name Jane because it's a classic name that you don't hear that often. Vivian, is a more vivacious name with fun nicknames, but also old ladyish, so I felt that fit Jane's mother. But I think it's probably half the time just names I like, or like the sounds of, or like the way they look on paper, and the other half a name that fits the character.
 
6.  What are your favorite:

Books/authors/genres: I love weird horror- been reading Nadia Bulkin's She Said Destroy and it's really good. Also Robert Aickman's collections, they are so good. Really good, the way he tells his story in a way that is both horrifying and familiar is brilliant. Big fan of super long urban fantasy series: I love Carrie Vaughn's Kitty and the Midnight Hour series. Also Ilona Andrews's Magic Bites series. BIg fan of early Kelley Armstrong. Laini Taylor I like a lot. Adored the Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys books, they were so original. Clive Barker. Nancy A. Collins. Huge Lovecraft fan. I love vampires, and monsters in general. And based on my mood I run from very hardcore splatterpunk horror to paranormal romance. But almost always a few monsters in there.

 

Movies/TV Shows: Buffy, Veronica Mars, IT Crowd, Party Down, Teen Wolf, She Wolf of London, Forever Knight, Slings and Arrows, Call the Midwife
Music: Nine Inch Nails, Fever Ray, Portishead, Crystal Castles, Carpenter Brut, Patrick Wolf, The Cure, Joy Division, PJ Harvey 
Food/Writing snack: popcorn, sour gummies

Social Media Site: I'm still pretty new to all the social media, but I have really started to enjoy the writer's community on facebook. And I love to look at art on instagram when uninspired.

About the Author:

Victoria Dalpe is a writer and visual artist based out of Providence, RI where she lives with her husband, writer and film maker, Philip Gelatt and their son. From the attic window they can see the spot where HP Lovecraft's ancestral home once stood... alas, it's now a Starbucks. Victoria loves horror movies, reads too much, and has a soft spot for painting animal skulls.  

Review: Monsterland by Michael Phillip Cash

I was lucky enough to win a copy of this in a giveaway.  It was a very quick read, nothing really different from what I expected, basically exactly the type of story you'd expect from the title.  I feel there were some things that were missed that could have definitely added to the story, but it did feel just like a horror movie would be, the way the things were missing was like what might be missing from a movie compared to the book. 

There were parts of the story told from different viewpoints, but in a way, who I felt was the main character was Wyatt Baldwin.  He's a high school student, and he lives in the town where one of the new theme parks called Monsterland is getting ready to open.  The story takes place in a future when a disease has caused some people to become zombies.  It's pretty much contained, the zombies are being kept in detention types of camps.  And  now are being brought to be part of the different theme parks that are being set up all over the world.  But in this future world, they have also found out that vampires are real, and have been just kind of hiding out, on the sidelines of the human world.  And when the creator of the parks is out searching for a Sasquatch or Bigfoot, he finds that werewolves are real.  They capture the werewolves that they find, which is easier because they have really dwindled in numbers.  So this theme park has a section where people can see zombies walk around, from a safe distance/viewing area.  There is a jungle ride where they will be able to see the werewolves, again from a safe area, and the park uses artificial moonlight to get the wolves to change.  And the vampires, because they have been around humans all the time already, they just have caps put on their fangs, and then they have a little town where people can go mingle with the vampires and even watch them as part of a rock band. 

Wyatt and his friends get free VIP passes to the opening night of the park.  And, as you would expect from a story like this, something goes wrong, monsters will get loose, and chaos ensues.  As I mentioned at the beginning, it was really a lot like a movie would be. 

I do feel there could have been some more character development and explanations.  There was one of Wyatt's friends that everyone called by his full name, all the time.  I'm sorry, that's just weird.  It reminded me of the movie 21 and Over where they kept calling the one character by his full name, Jeff Chang, the whole movie.  Only, it could be something I missed as I read, but I'm not sure why they did that?  I do like what happened with his friend Melvin though.  We also had some drama with Wyatt's family, his mom and stepdad - who we also got some of his viewpoint, and then a surprising bit with Wyatt's dad even. 

While I get the point trying to be made about the detention camps, and that the big gate reminded them of the Auschwitz Concentration camp gate that said "Work will set you free", I feel like that may have stretched a little for the actual type of book this is.  To me the cover looked like the Jurassic Park gate, and yes, they did draw comparisons in the book to that, like they should have.  And really that fit the story much better, so they probably could have stuck with that.  Comparing zombies, werewolves, and vampires to real people who were in death camps seems a little bit in poor taste. But that's just me.  I could be overthinking it. 

All in all it was a quick, horror movie style read, interesting even while predictable for the most part.

Promo Post - Thirst: Blood of my Blood by RP Channing

240+ Pages
WITH BEAUTIFUL PHOTOGRAPHS

~ Kira Sutherland ~

After a near fatal accident (and getting cheated on by her 'boyfriend'), and beating up the lead cheerleader (with whom the boyfriend cheated...), and being labeled as having 'issues' in her school because she, uhm, sees ghosts, Kira is left with two choices:

1. Continue her 'therapy' (where she's told the ghost is a hallucination and also gets her legs ogled too often...)

Or

2. Go to Starkfield Academy, a boarding school for "Crazies and Convicts" (as the social media sites call them.)

She chooses the latter...

~ Cory Rand ~

Cory Rand has not had an easy life. His mother died in a car accident when he was twelve, and so did his mother's best friend...sort of. You see, Janice made a promise to take care of Cory just before she died, and so she lingers. Undead. A ghost that watches out for him.

Brought up in an abusive home, Cory quickly falls into a life of disreputable behavior. After his third offense (which was prompted by a girl, as usual - he has a weakness) he's left with two choices:

1. Be tried as an adult and share a cell with a guy named Bubba (he thinks...)

Or

2. Go to Starkfield Academy, which Cory is pretty sure is run by vampires. But, hey, at least he'll get an education.

He chooses the latter...

It's at Starkfield that Kira meets Cory Rand, a boy with an insatiable Rage who sees ghosts, too. As well as other things, other things from his past, things that confuse him, things like fire and witches and demons.

Things he's always ignored.

Until now.

Genres:

Young Adult Romance

Paranormal Romance

High School

Vampires, Demons, Witches

Dark Fantasy

Horror

Buy Links:

Amazon US
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018M5GTLI
Amazon UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B018M5GTLI

Kindle Unlimited 

Author Bio

R P Channing started writing three years ago, but never published anything even after churning out over a million words of fiction. Thirst: Blood of my Blood is the first book he dared to publish. When asked why, he said, “Because it’s the first thing I wrote that my wife actually enjoyed reading.” When not hammering away (most literally) at his keyboard, he can be found buried in a book, reading anything from romance to horror to young adult to non-fiction to comedy.

Author Links

Website
http://blog.rpchanning.com

Twitter

@rpchanning

Amazon

http://amazon.com/author/rpchanning

Excerpt:

PROLOGUE

-1-
The Puppy Eyes

My life was perfect.

I had the perfect shoes and the perfect friends and I lived in the perfect house. My nails were perfect and my hair was perfect (except on Sundays, it was always windy on Sundays) and I had the perfect clothes. My lips were a perfect red and my hair perfectly straight. My eyeshadow was perfect, my hips were...okay, and my waist...well...also okay. Nothing was wrong in my life.

But then there was Jack.

Jack was a problem.

He needed to go. I mean, when you’re dead, you’re dead! I had told him this endlessly. Somehow, Jack didn’t get it. I mean, I felt sorry for the guy. Sure. Being stuck between this life and the next. But just because I found him, does that mean I needed to keep him?

I think not!

Sadly, when Jack got that look in his eyes, that weary, almost teary (if his tear-ducts worked) look, I melted. I just couldn’t send him away. Not even Jack knew where he would go after he died.

Would he, like, die? As in — dead, nada, kaput, finito, gone, no more? Bye bye, sayonara, ciao, hasta la vista baby and all that?

I couldn’t have that on my conscience. No way.

I lay on my bed, wondering what to do about him. “Jaaaaaaack,” I hollered.

“Jaaaaaaack!”

Still no answer.

“Jack!”

Jack...materialized.

His eyes rolled down to the ground. He was making those puppy eyes again. “Jack, I told you not to do that. I told you not to play on my sympathies.”

His puppy eyes became worse.

His skin was gray and, well, dead.

“Oh, brother,” I said. “I have to do something about you. If mom finds out I have another ‘imaginary friend’ — at my age — well, I’d die of embarrassment. But, like, really die. Not like you.” I wondered about this. Would I die? Was Jack a freak accident, or did all people live on like him? Think of the cemeteries...

The idea excited me somewhat.

“What would you have me do, Miss Kira?”

“Knock off the Miss Kira crap. I told you it’s just Kira.”

“Yes, Miss Kira.”

The dead. There’s just no reasoning.

“Fine, Miss Kira it is then.” Rover barked like a lunatic in the garden. No one else might be able to see Jack, but I was sure my dog could.

“I have to do something about this,” I mumbled.

-2-
The Rat

Mike knocked on the door before I had time to leave the house. Mike was the guy I thought (at the time) was perfect.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, baby.”

Baby, urgh — I wasn’t his baby. I dated Mike because he was the quarterback, because girls are supposed to like the quarterback, because it’s just so darn perfect to be seen with the quarterback, like we’re brainwashed into thinking these things from the first romantic doll set mom buys us.

This was my previous life.

“Mike.”

“Uh-huh. Gonna let me in?”

So you can try rub me up and then complain when I don’t let you? This, dear reader, was the big problem with Mike. The second we first kissed, his hand went way too far south for me to be comfortable — and I pulled back.

Mike suddenly wasn’t so perfect.

“Uhm, I was just on my way out,” I said.

“Kira? C’mon, open the door.” He sounded upset. “Is there someone in there with you?”

Boys. As if.

I didn’t know much about love (nothing, actually) but I knew this wasn’t it.

“Uhm, now’s not the time, Mike.”

“C’mon, Kira, what’s going on?” He banged harder.

When in doubt...lie. I opened the door a crack. “There’s a dead rat in the house, Mike. Been here for days. I gotta go get some detergent and stuff to handle the stench.”

Mike stepped back. He peered through the crack of the door.

“It’s really bad,” I said.

“I’ll drive you.”

“I’m afraid the smell” — I stuck my armpit to my nose — “has found its way all over me. I’ll drive myself.”

“O — okay. Fine.” And then he grinned like he wanted something. “Later? My place?”

Urgh. “Uhm, sure...er...later. Not sure when though.”

“Six.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. According to girls at school, he was apparently so damn good looking — theoretically. But for me personally, he did nothing. Moved nothing. Twisted nothing. “Look, I gotta go, Mike. I gotta — ”

“Kira.” His eyes grew stern. “You’ve been avoiding me...”

Bingo! Well done contestant number one! And what have you won? A brain!

I tilted my head. “Mike, look, this...rat — I need to deal with it. We’ll talk later, okay? Bye.” I closed the door, not waiting for an answer, and peered out the peep hole. Mike hung around for a second, shoulders wide and eyes glaring straight at me through the door. Could he see me? Did he know I was looking at him?

He kicked something off the ground, and I had the distinct impression he mouthed the word Bitch before leaving. But I wasn’t sure...

-3-
The Mack

“Roll down the window, Jack.” Jack was recently dead, so he still had a smell about him. (Which only I could smell...)

I had purposely skipped breakfast. Maybe Jack would help me lose weight. I was (still am) a little wide, although it had never stopped guys flirting with me. I know how to dress.

But I could be skinnier.

Lucy Rogers was skinny. All bones and no boobs.

Charlene Carverton was a babe. Cheerleader. Big chest (which she pushed out generously with a push-up — if only guys knew). Toned thighs. Charlene only dated college boys (back then), which I still think is pretty gross for a girl her age.

“He’s not for you,” Jack said out the blue.

“Hmm?”

“This...Mike — he’s wrong for you, Miss Kira.” For all Jack’s faults (mainly, being dead), he has a good heart. Factually, probably it’s why I kept him around at first.

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Then why don’t you dump him?”

I braked at a stop sign. Looked left and right. “Because I’d look like an idiot. I flirted with him and showed interest, and one kiss later I can’t stand the sight of him.”

“So dump him.”

“It’s not that simple. Kids at school — they can be vicious. I have to let it fade slowly. If I drop the bomb on him, I’ll never hear the end of it through senior year.”

“And you care?”

Yes, I did. Forget Guantanamo, schools are rough. “You don’t understand, Jack. Maybe school was different in your day. But in mine, well, we walk through metal detectors.”

“Schools weren’t too different in my day.” I noted the sadness in his voice.

“You okay?”

“I’m dead.”

Right. “You miss...your life?”

Jack shrugged. “I like being with you, Miss Kira. And I don’t remember much of my life. I think I’m in limbo.”

“Limbo?”

“Yes, like I have some unfinished business. If only I could remember...what...it is...” He scratched his head.

“Any ideas?”

“Well, it can’t be love. If it were love, I’d be a vampire. That’s who teenage girls fall in love with these days.”

“A vampire? That’s just what I need — two undead beings stalking me.”

“I feel I have something to do around you, Miss Kira. I don’t know what, but something. Something important.”

I looked over at him. “Me?”

I was still looking at him when I missed the stop sign.

The Mack truck drove straight into us.  

 

$20 Amazon Gift Voucher Giveaway

At the back of the book there is a giveaway link. Once the book hits fifty reviews on Amazon, one of those reviewers will win a $20 (US Dollars) Amazon Gift Voucher!