Blog Tour: If I Should Die by Amy Plum & Giveaway!

Welcome to my stop for the IF I SHOULD DIE blog tour! Now IF I SHOULD DIE is book three in the Revenants series, so if you haven’t read the first two books (Die for Me & Until I Die) you should! I love this series and I’m so sad to see it end. And If I Should Die did not disappoint as the ending to the trilogy. I should have my review up a little bit closer to the release date.

You can check out the complete tour line up over at Mundie Moms!

I will not lose another person I love. I will not let history repeat itself.

Vincent waited lifetimes to find me, but in an instant our future together was shattered. He was betrayed by someone we both called a friend, and I lost him. Now our enemy is determined to rule over France’s immortals, and willing to wage a war to get what they want.

It shouldn’t be possible, none of it should be, but this is my reality. I know Vincent is somewhere out there, I know he’s not completely gone, and I will do anything to save him.

After what we’ve already fought to achieve, a life without Vincent is unimaginable. He once swore to avoid dying—to go against his nature and forsake sacrificing himself for others—so that we could be together. How can I not risk everything to bring my love back to me?

Excerpt from If I Should Die:

“Monsieur Grimod, please try to put yourself into my shoes. Last night my granddaughters came home after participating in a violent fight during which both could have easily been killed. Kate’s boyfriend actually was killed, although I realize that that sort of thing isn’t as serious for your kind, your deaths being impermanent,” she said crisply.

“But because his body was then immolated, he is now floating around as a ghost and being held captive in a castle by a psychotic medieval zombie. The same psychotic medieval zombie who gave one of my granddaughters a concussion and has been sending the other flowers for the last couple of months . . . at our home . . . because she KNOWS WHERE WE LIVE.” Mamie’s face was now purple from her battle between politesse and expressing her true feelings.

“And now I am being asked if my granddaughter can walk right back into the same situation. Unless I was completely insane, my response to that request would be an unequivocal no.”

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Month of Men Blog Tour: Guest Post with Simone Elkeles

Yay! It’s my turn for the Month of Men Blog Tour!!! The Month of Men Blog Tour is coming to via Simon and Schuster UK and it’s a month long event. If you haven’t checked out the other blogs and their posts, you should! You can visit the official Facebook page for all the information about the participating authors and the full schedule!

My guest post today come from author Simone Elkeles, it’s about writing for teens!

Thank you SO much for letting me be a guest post on The Story Siren! I’m super excited to be able to contribute today!

Writing for Teens

I hated reading as a teen and fell in love with reading as an adult when I took my kids to the library. One of the books that got me “into” reading was the book She’s Come Undone – but it was depressing. I switched to reading romance novels – they always have happy endings! I LOVE when a book has a HEA (Happily Ever After).

I started writing a Native American Romance novel, because I love the strong alpha hero – they were amazing warriors. My first book I titled Bound by Honor, but it will probably stay under my bed because it was the first book I wrote. I don’t have a degree in journalism, writing, or English, so I had to teach myself how to write. I never took a creative writing class so it was tough for me to figure it out on my own, but I did it. I read a LOT! I never sold that book. I sold my third book first, which was How to Ruin a Summer Vacation. (the second book I wrote was Perfect Chemistry but it was the fourth book I sold.) I’d gone to writers workshops, attended writers conferences and met with editors and agents, and kept submitting my work to agents and editors hoping someone would fall in love with my work. FINALLY, five years after I started writing, an agent called and said they loved my work. I sold my first book in 2009 and have eight books written and a new series coming out soon called Wild Cards.

I love writing for teens! I cannot imagine myself doing anything else. Teens are the best fans and the most passionate readers. They inspire me to write more books. I did try to get Bound by Honor published by sending it to publishers and agents. I spent years trying to sell it, but then realized that since I was getting a lot of rejections I should probably start a new book. It’s hard when you realize your first book isn’t good enough and you have to start over with a new book and try again. It took a lot of guts and perseverance, but I did it. I sold my first book, then my second and third…and I just finished my ninth. My motto is to never give up! (if I had, I wouldn’t be published today!)

My journey is different than anyone else’s. Some people sell their first book, some sell their third book first (like me), and some keep writing and never sell. My advice is to write what you like to read and have fun writing!

Simone Elkeles
www.simoneelkeles.com

Author Bio:

Simone Elkeles is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of novels for teens. Simone’s books have won many awards including being YALSA Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, being named to the YALSA Popular Paperbacks and Teens Top Ten lists, and added to the Illinois “Read for a Lifetime” Reading List. Simone also won the coveted RITA award from the Romance Writers of America for her book Perfect Chemistry. Simone is especially proud of the fact that the Illinois Association of Teachers of English named her Author of the Year.

Simone was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, where she still lives today.She loves animals (she has two dogs – a labradoodle and a German Shepherd), kids (she also has two of those) and her family. In her spare time she’s the Hockey Mom for her kids hockey teams and is an active Girl Scout leader specially trained in outdoor education. She also spends time mentoring other teen and adult authors. (She also loves sushi, which you can probably tell by reading her books.) Simone writes about teens because she was a teen in the 80’s (when spiked hair and blue eye shadow were “rad”) and she loves writing about those exciting teen relationships and romances.

And what Month of Men Tour would be complete without a little eye candy! Check out the new covers for Simone’s Leaving Paradise and Return to Paradise!

Blog Tour: 17 & GONE by Nova Ren Suma

Source: flickr.com via Nova on Pinterest

 

Guest post by Nova Ren Suma

Last year, when I was deep into writing 17 & Gone, I discovered an exciting new distraction and way to collect images that fascinated me: Pinterest. What started off as maybe one more thing to keep me from writing turned into a great source of inspiration, and my 17 & Gone inspiration board was born. I’d often write with the images up on my screen, staring at them in pauses between paragraphs. On each stop on this blog tour I’m highlighting one of the photos that spoke to me and helped me find my way through the darkness of writing this book.

This is a photo  by someone who calls herself suziesparkle. The artist’s name makes me smile, but the picture doesn’t. When I first saw this shattered image of a girl’s face, I immediately spiraled into 17 & Gone and thought of Lauren, her mind breaking into pieces, her world turning jagged and sharp just like in this photograph.

My arm, threatening to give me up, was already pointing at the mirror. I saw, past tense, and was still seeing someone else’s face. I was wearing a mask made out of her skin and features and I couldn’t get it to come off.
—from 17 & Gone, page 132

Mirrors come up often in 17 & Gone—but they don’t always reflect the person who’s looking into them. There’s something about a face reflected in the shards of a shattered mirror that says something inexplicably symbolic to me about this story and the girl who’s telling it. So much of my time writing the book was me trying to write her back again, whole.

For spotlights on more images from my 17 & Gone inspiration board on Pinterest, keep following this blog tour!

Blog tour schedule:

Monday, 3/18: Mundie Moms
Tuesday, 3/19: Confessions of a Readaholic
Wednesday, 3/20: The Compulsive Reader
Thursday, 3/21: The Mod Podge Bookshelf
Friday, 3/22: Anna Reads

Tuesday, 3/26: A Good Addiction
Wednesday, 3/27: Radiant Reads
Thursday, 3/28: Presenting Lenore
Friday, 3/29: Book Chic

17 & Gone summary: 

Seventeen-year-old Lauren is having visions of girls who have gone missing. And all these girls have just one thing in common—they are 17 and gone without a trace. As Lauren struggles to shake these waking nightmares, impossible questions demand urgent answers: Why are the girls speaking to Lauren? How can she help them? And . . . is she next? As Lauren searches for clues, everything begins to unravel, and when a brush with death lands her in the hospital, a shocking truth emerges, changing everything.

Blog Tour: ORLEANS by Sherri Smith & Giveaway

I am thrilled to be hosting Sherri Smith and her new book ORLEANS!! If you haven’t already you should add this one to your reading piles! It’ll be hitting shelves March 7, so be on the look out!

First came the storms.
Then came the Fever.
And the Wall.

After a string of devastating hurricanes and a severe outbreak of Delta Fever, the Gulf Coast has been quarantined. Years later, residents of the Outer States are under the assumption that life in the Delta is all but extinct… but in reality, a new primitive society has been born.

Fen de la Guerre is living with the O-Positive blood tribe in the Delta when they are ambushed. Left with her tribe leader’s newborn, Fen is determined to get the baby to a better life over the wall before her blood becomes tainted. Fen meets Daniel, a scientist from the Outer States who has snuck into the Delta illegally. Brought together by chance, kept together by danger, Fen and Daniel navigate the wasteland of Orleans. In the end, they are each other’s last hope for survival.

Sherri L. Smith delivers an expertly crafted story about a fierce heroine whose powerful voice and firm determination will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

Love in The Time of Delta Fever: The Unromantic Truth Behind Orleans

by Sherri Smith

You know the story—a boy, a girl, in a crazy mixed up world. Lots of dystopian fiction hinges on this relationship, love blooming like a rose in the mud. It’s often what saves (or complicates, and then saves) the dystopian heroine or hero. From the love triangle in The Hunger Games to the tragic longing in books like Daughter of Smoke and Bone, teen novels and romantic love are a given. You can’t even walk into a high school without being handed a copy of Romeo and Juliet. But this book is different. To paraphrase a certain movie, “Forget it, Jake. It’s Orleans. “*

So, the synopsis:  In a not-to-distant future, a series of man-made and natural disasters has given rise to the deadly Delta Fever, causing the United States to build a quarantine wall and abandon the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas. In the former city of New Orleans, the survivors have gone tribal based on blood type. One girl fights to save the life of a newborn baby, while a scientist from the Outer States infiltrates Orleans in hopes of a cure.

The ingredients are there: a feisty girl named Fen and an intelligent guy named Daniel. And there are plenty of obstacles: a deadly disease, hunters that are literally out for blood, and a wall that would make Pyramus and Thisbe weep.** But this is not a love story. At least not romantic love.

In a world like Orleans, full of disaster, past, present and waiting-to-happen, Fen might have met Daniel, melted into his eyes, and we’d have a full-on romantic tragedy on our hands—star-crossed lovers from separate worlds who can never be together. But it wouldn’t ring true. The sort of person Fen has become in order to survive in her city precludes notions of tenderness and snogging. In Orleans, falling for the wrong blood type could literally mean the death of you. (Never mind the fact that pregnancy increases a woman’s blood volume by about 50%. In a world where you may be hunted for your blood, abstinence is more than a virtue, it’s self-defense.) Not that romantic love can’t exist in harsh conditions.  It happens all the time. Just not to Fen. She’s a guarded person. Whereas crisis often pushes people together (“We’re last two people on earth, let’s repopulate!”), Fen’s “normal” is a state of crisis. It would take more than a few days with her life at stake to make her say, “wait a minute, I think I love you.”

But, without love, what’s the point? In the middle ages, the poet Marie de France described at least five types of love:  Courtly, romantic, forbidden, familial and that of lord and vassal (you remember that one, don’t you?). She went on to tell various stories in which these types of love can lead to joy or disaster. Guess which one trips Fen up? That love most of us knew before hormones and school dances got in the way. The love of family.

The one tenderness Fen finds she cannot fight is what she feels for the baby girl in her arms and for the baby’s mother. The latter gave her safe haven once upon a time, and the former needs her protection. Daniel is also motivated by love, for those he left behind. The thing about familial love is, if you’ve always had it, it’s easy to take for granted. But in Orleans, family isn’t something you are born into. You have to be accepted. And love, like trust, must be earned. As both Fen and Daniel learn, it’s not an easy road. But, even without the snogging, love can still conquer all.

*”Chinatown”—that’s the movie!  The last line is “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

** Brush up on your Greek mythology—two crazy kids that fall in love talking through a chink in the wall between their houses. It does not end well.

Sherri L. Smith has written several award-winning novels for young adults. Flygirl (2010) won the California Book Award, was a YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, and has received fourteen State Award nominations. She lives near Los Angeles. For more information, visit her website or her blog, The Middle Hundred. She can be found on Twitter @Sherri_L_Smith.

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Blog Tour: Things I Can’t Forget by Miranda Kenneally

Today I’m hosting the fabulous Miranda Kenneally! If you haven’t read her books yet, you are totally missing out! Her newest title Things I Can’t Forget will be hitting shelves March 1!!

Companion to Catching Jordan and Stealing Parker.

Kate has always been the good girl. Too good, according to some people at school—although they have no idea the guilty secret she carries. But this summer, everything is different…

This summer she’s a counselor at Cumberland Creek summer camp, and she wants to put the past behind her. This summer Matt is back as a counselor too. He’s the first guy she ever kissed, and he’s gone from a geeky songwriter who loved The Hardy Boys to a buff lifeguard who loves to flirt…with her.

Kate used to think the world was black and white, right and wrong. Turns out, life isn’t that easy…

“Why Different Beliefs and Values Fascinate Me”

Blog post about why Miranda Kenneally wrote THINGS I CAN’T FORGET.

When I was sixteen, one of my closest friends got pregnant. At the time, I certainly hadn’t agreed with her decision to have sex, especially with a guy who wasn’t her boyfriend, but she was still my friend, so I wanted to stick by her. A lot of kids at my school ridiculed her and made fun of her, especially guys. I remember being shocked that one boy was particularly hurtful to her, and I couldn’t understand it because I knew he was trying to convince another friend of mine to have sex. The whole situation was crazy, especially when other kids started teasing me for being friends with a girl who was pregnant.

Still, I knew I had to stand by her, so I spoke to a woman at my church and we found a special home my friend could go away to so she could have the baby, put it up for adoption, and stay in school. My friend ended up never coming back to my high school.

I was proud of the decision I had made, to help my friend and stay by her. A couple years later, when I was 18 and still in high school, the same friend got pregnant again. This time by a different guy. And this time, she wanted to have an abortion. Her parents refused to help her, so my friend turned to me again. She didn’t need money, but she needed someone to drive her to the abortion clinic and bring her home after.

I was so pissed at her. I knew her parents wouldn’t let her go on birth control (!!!), but I’d told her to buy condoms. Still, this was a friend who had stuck by me through high school and had been my friend even when she was much more popular and prettier than me, but ultimately I decided I couldn’t help her. It wasn’t that I was against abortion – honestly, I’d never much thought about it, but I worried what other people would say if they found out I helped her get an abortion. My parents would be pissed. Kids at school would tease me again, just like when my friend got pregnant the first time. My church would be totally upset.

I had no thoughts of my own.

My friend found someone else to help her. She paid some random man to drive her there and back, which was totally unsafe. Our friendship kind of dissolved after that, but I often still think about what happened.

What if I had helped my friend? To this day, I don’t know if I made the right decision or not. At the time, it was a decision made based mostly on other people’s beliefs, not my own. Today, I probably would do whatever a friend asked of me, regardless of what I believe. It’s not my decision to make.

THINGS I CAN’T FORGET, my third book, is about a girl named Kate, a devout Christian, who makes a decision to help her friend get an abortion, and afterwards she has to deal with the guilt and the resulting fall-out of their friendship. This book isn’t autobiographical at all – I was never as devout as Kate, but I feel this book gave me the opportunity to explore the guilt and to show that “your truth isn’t necessarily everyone else’s truth.”

I know that a lot of readers were shocked when I decided to include religion in my books STEALING PARKER and THINGS I CAN’T FORGET (this will be my final book that explores religion), but religion is a big part of people’s lives here in America. The last census said that 78% of Americans claim they are Protestant. I wouldn’t call myself a Christian – I haven’t been to church in 12 years, but I still often think about what I believe, and I want teenagers and readers of all ages to know they can believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of what their parents and friends say. You need to make your own decisions.

THINGS I CAN’T FORGET also aims to show that you can be friends with people who don’t necessarily believe what you believe, whether it’s about your idea of heaven, or Coke vs. Pepsi, or Mets vs. Yankees. This book is all about a willingness to be open.

If I could go back in time to my 18-year-old self, I wouldn’t tell myself whether or not I should help my friend get an abortion. I’d tell myself to do what I know in my heart to be right.