In My Mailbox (135)

Dreams of Significant Girls by Cristina Garcia (Goodreads | Amazon)
Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally (Goodreads | Amazon)
Isle of Night: The Watchers by Veronica Wolff (Goodreads | Amazon)
Beautiful Days by Anna Godbersen (Goodreads | Amazon)
Fetching by Kiera Stewart (Goodreads | Amazon)

Girls Taking Over The World Signing

Next weekend kicks off the Girls Taking Over The World Tour! Featuring authors: Lara Zielin (Donut Days & The Implosion of Aggie Winchester),  Rhonda Stapleton (Stupid Cupid, Flirting With Disaster & Pucker Up) Christine Johnson (Claire de Lune & Nocturne) & Saundra Mitchell (Shadowed Summer & The Vespertine)! And they’ll have some special guests along the way too!

If you’re in the Indiana/Michigan/Kentucky/Ohio area this is a signing that you won’t want to miss! I’ll be going to the second stop next week August 6, at Summer’s Stories! Here’s the full schedule:

Reading, Q&A, Signing
Friday, August 5, 2011
7:00-9:00PM
Nicola’s Books
Special Guest: Aimée Carter
Westgate Shopping Center
2513 Jackson Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48103

Booktalk & Signing
Saturday, August 6, 2011
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Summer’s Stories
131 S Main
Kendallville, IN 46755

Booktalk & Signing
Sunday, August 7, 2011
2:00pm – 4:00pm
Special Guest: Aimée Carter
Barnes & Noble Livonia
17111 Haggerty Rd.
Northville, MI 48167

Meet, Greet & Sign
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
5:00-7:00PM
Mudsock Books
11850 Allisonville Rd
Fishers, IN 46038

Book Talk, Q&A & Signing
Friday, August 26th, 2011
7:00-9:00PM
Special Guest: Julie Kagawa
Campbell County Public Library
Carrico/Ft. Thomas Branch
1000 Highland Ave.
Fort Thomas, KY 41075
(Sponsored by Blue Marble)

Book Talk & Signing
Saturday, August 27th, 2011
4:00-6:00PM
Special Guest: Sara Bennett Wealer
blue manatee
3054 Madison Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45209

I hope to see you there! Do let me know if you’ll be going to the Summer’s Stories signing, I would love to meet some fellow book lovers! And for those of you that can’t make it to the signing, please fill out the following form and I’ll pick up a few personalized signed books for one lucky winner!

New Reads: July 24-30, 2011

Out This Week:

Now in Paperback:

Books to Pine For (56)

Basically “Books to Pine For” are books not yet released, that I can’t wait to get my hands on (or books I’ve recently gotten my hands on… but are still pine-worthy)!

If this is your first visit to the blog, I do “Books to Pine For” sporadically, it’s a regular feature but it doesn’t have a set date I post every month or what not.

You can check out all the books to pine for posts, they start chronologically from the most recent. In case you want to check out some earlier ones I’ve done. Okay I’ve rambled enough, on to the goods!

Just a note.. all the links in the titles go to their Goodreads page… easier to add to your wish list!

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This one also has a lot of 2012 debuts! It’s never to early to start making up your challenge lists!

Author Interview: Sara Grant & Giveaway

Sara Grant

Books:

• Dark Parties

Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Buy the Book | Read Chapter One

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In a world shrouded in fear and lies, how can you shed light on the truth?

Sixteen-year-old Neva lives in Homeland, an isolated country separated from the rest of the world by the Protectosphere. The government insists there’s nothing beyond its borders, but as Homeland’s resources dwindle, people, girls mainly, have started to go missing. If there’s no way out of the Protectosphere, where are they going? Suspecting the government is lying about everything, Neva and her friends stage a Dark Party in the hope of uncovering the truth and finding the freedom they dream about.

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I was thrilled to be able to participate in another webinar! This one featuring debut author, Sara Grant! (You might remember last month I participated in a webinar with Cat Patrick.) There were also some fantastic bloggers that participated too; Michelle at Galleysmith, Stacey at Pageturners, Sarah at Green Bean Teen Queen & Sara at Novel Novice. How lucky are we!?! We had the oportunity to talk to Sara on the phone and ask her some questions. Below I have the transcription of my questions with Sara, be sure to stop by the other blogs to check their questions!

Sara Grant: I’m Sara Grant, and I’m calling you from London, England. I was telling Chelsy that I’m glad this isn’t video because I’m in my pajamas.
This is my first webinar, and I am very excited to be joining you all. It’s also my debut novel, Dark Parties, which is a dystopian YA novel. And it comes out on August 3rd. And it’s a very exciting process, and I’m really looking forward to your questions.

Kristi: Hi, Sara. I’m Kristi from The Story Siren. My question is all of the characters–well, most of them–in Dark Parties have an identity mark. What would your identity mark be?

Sara Grant: Oh, gosh. I would say, if I had to choose one, it would probably be the snowflake, because I quite like what that means. It’s about diversity, it’s about being unique.
But, also, I think the interesting thing is that they all believe it’s something external. But, I’m more interested in what identity mark you’d have for yourself and what my friends would say about me.

Kristi: Brilliant. Thank you.

Sara Grant: Kristi, can I ask you a question?

Kristi: Sure.

Sara Grant: Are you from Indiana?

Kristi: Yes, I am. I saw that you are, too.

Sara Grant: A small town? Yes. So, I wanted to know what small town you’re from.

Kristi: I grew up in Hagerstown, which is right outside of Muncie. And now, I live in Avilla, which is right outside of Fort Wayne. I saw you were from…

Sara Grant: Washington, Indiana, a small town–.

Kristi: That’s very cool.

Kristi: Did you write Dark Parties–did you have an intended message that you wanted the readers to take away after reading the novel?

Sara Grant: I think probably if you look at anything that I’ve written, my fundamental belief is that one person can make a difference.

I think that idea underlies what I write, and if you read the next thing and the next, it probably will be there at least on a very subtle level.

What I hope the book does is ask a lot of questions about identity, be it national or personal. And the other interesting question that I wanted to explore personally was how far would you go for freedom.

I would like to believe that in a similar situation I would be the one that stands up and gives the rallying cry. But I also know that’s naïve because it’s really easy to be settled.
I wanted to look at Neva and kind of push her and see what it would take for a character to do extraordinary things to make a difference in the world.

So, I think it’s more about the questions I hope people ask a result of reading Dark Parties.

Kristi: Excellent. Thank you.

Sara Grant: I just want to thank you very much for hosting me. It’s a great experience for me to get to talk to people who’ve read the book and get feedback from them.

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Official Contest information:

• to enter, please fill out the form below
• entrants must be 13 years of age or older
• contest deadline is August 10, 2011
• contest open to US*
• ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
• check out my Contest Policy/Privacy Policy