World peace be damned!

With the highly anticipated release of the third book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy less than six months away we must once again get our debate on about a very very serious issue that has arisen out of the ashes of The Districts. Over on Scholastic’s blog On Our Minds the awesomeness that is Beth Fish Reads and I are debating highly charged and life altering issues.  You guessed it — Team Peeta (woot woot!) versus Team Gale (boo, hiss).

I suppose you already know which side I’m on but in case you’re interested (which I know you aren’t) Beth Fish makes some mighty fine points for the Gale lovers out there.

Please go and check it out then weigh in on where you stand even if it is the wrong side. For now I leave you with my less than surprising declaration of which team I’m on!

We keep put….put….puttering along on our most fabulous of road trips. This week we’re making a host of wonderful stops across the country.  Wanna see?

Georgia

A Novel Source reviews Ronda Rich author of What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should)

Illinois

Devourer of Books spotlights Melanie Benjamin author of Alice I Have Been

Pennsylvania

Beth Fish Reads spotlights Jen Nadol author of The Mark

Wisconsin

Dollycas’s Thoughts reviews Jacqueline Mitchard’s No Time to Wave Goodbye

I really enjoyed our trip through the last couple of weeks, didn’t you?

If you are interested in participating in the Literary Road Trip please be sure to head over to the main page (a link is in the top navigation) and sign up. I’d love to have you! Until next time, safe travels.

Happy Sunday my friends, I hope this post is finding you well!

As most who follow me on Twitter know I’ve been extremely busy at work and was tremendously pleased to have this weekend off to do as I wanted.  I’ve run errands, done laundry, took my niece out to lunch and was even lazy enough to luxuriate with a nap.  Now today will be another day filled with laundry, a bit of cleaning, paying bills and recording the two giant piles of books I have sitting in a chair in my TBR spreadsheet.  Oh and writing blog posts!  I must write some blog posts!

Wanting to catch you up on a couple of things before I dive into the duties of my day.

Made From Awesome Mega Chat

I’m super jazzed about this awesome two-night author event sponsored by YALitChat.  Some of YA’s finest will be brought together on April 14 and 15 to discuss their work, publishing and just about all things YA.  I’m not going to list all of the participating authors here but I will say it’s a pretty powerful line-up.  A veritable who’s who of young adult literature.  So go read the Made From Awesome Mega Chat post on the YALitChat blog, grab the button and please participate.

Tell all your friends about it and encourage them to tell all their friends as well!  It’s going to be, well made from awesome!

Nerds Heart YA Nominations

I’m equally excited about the progress of the Nerds Heart YA tournament.  Jodie, Amy, Trish and I are busily putting together the judging bracket and are hoping to get that announced in the next couple of weeks.   But, we don’t want progress to come to a halt in the meantime, so get your patoots out there and nominate some eligible titles for the tournament!  We’re looking for books that have been authored by or include a character in the following categories:

• Person(s) of Color (POC)
• GLBT
• Disability/Mental Ilness
• Religious Lifestyle
• Lower Socioeconomic Status

Hop on over to the Nerds Heart YA nomination form to submit as many titles as you’d like up until the form closes on March 31, 2010.

Book Blogger Convention

Organizing and registration is still going strong for the First Annual Book Blogger Convention to be held May 28th in NYC.  We’ve recently started collecting contributions for our charity raffle, swag bags and have announced a Thursday evening author reception.  Everyone is welcome to contribute, if you have an item you’d like to include please don’t hesitate to contact us at bookbloggercon[at]gmail[dot]com we’d love to hear from you.

Also, if you’re planning to go to BEA and want to hang out with a bunch of cool bloggers that Friday register!  $115 will get you Thursday author reception, Friday conference with breakfast and lunch, and an awesome opportunity to network with all sorts of awesome bloggers, authors and publishing industry types.

So that’s about the size of things here this Sunday.  I hope today finds you productive, lazy, or whatever you want to be!

Title: Mr. Darcy Vampyre
Author: Amanda Grange
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Source: Purchased
Parental Warning: violence

“He looked as though he was about to say something more and suddenly she felt a sense of dread, as though there were something dark lurking beneath the surface of her life, something which threatened her world, her security, her happiness.  But then he stroked her hair and everything was as it should be.  He relaxed, and she relaxed as well.”

Summary:
Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy are recently wed and embarking on their honeymoon.

Touring Europe should be a happy and exciting time for a young couple in love but theirs is filled with complications.  First, Lizzie is concerned by the fact that Mr. Darcy has not yet made any overtures of intimacy.  In fact he overtly declines and avoids them.  Further, his attempts to be a loving and supportive husband (in the non-physical sense) aside Lizzie finds his behavior as they travel to be quite odd.  Add to this the various family members and acquaintances they encounter through their trip and Lizzie is a muddled mess of confusion.

Wondering if she’s made a mistake, or worse that Mr. Darcy believes they have made a mistake, in getting married Lizzie writes letters to Jane in the hopes of feeling a miniscule of relief from the stress. Sending them via a maid and courier she believes to be personally vouched for by her husband and his close relations she doesn’t realize that perhaps more nefarious goings on are occurring. Only small clues and strange happenings here and there provide her any inkling about something being wrong.

On the last leg of their trip Mrs. Darcy is finally faced with answers to all of the questions she has and resolutions to all of the different situations she perceives to be filled with conflict.  Unfortunately she is quickly overcome with the reality of her situation.  Mr. Darcy is a vampyre.

Opinion:
This definitely wasn’t the book for me.  I’ve never been one who reads classics well but I’ve wanted to expand my reading in that area and thought that this book would provide me a happy medium — a classic with a twist.  While it did provide the latter it was still just too much for me. I’ve always liked a good combination of show and tell with perhaps a bit more on the telling side and this book was a lot more of the show.

The plot was interesting enough and honestly it’s what kept me from completely abandoning the book when I was struggling to keep going.  The history of how Darcy became a Vampyre was compelling and plausible given the supernatural circumstances.  The other item in the pro column was the setting.  Dark and mysterious there was a certain degree of gloom over the entirety of the story.  To me, this added to the creepy vibe that one would anticipate accompanies the focus on the vampirism.  Lastly, I’ll add that the location and time period also went a long way in setting a tone that was befitting a plot of this nature.

I will say the end, which I will not spoil here, seemed awfully qick and not as satisfying as I would have liked.  As a reader I went through all of this trial and tribulation for an extended period of time just to have it answered in a matter of pages.  It just seemed a bit off in timing for me personally.

Kudos to the author for infusing the elements of Austen’s characterizations into this story.  Both Mr. and Mrs. Darcy remained true to their original forms.

While I personally didn’t enjoy this book I don’t think it was a result of it being poorly written or plotted.  Perhaps it’s more an issue ofmaking a poor selection on my part.  If you like vampire books and are a fan of Austen’s work then definitely give this one a try.

Title: Magic Under Glass
Author: Jaclyn Dolamore
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Source: Provided by Publisher
Parental Warning: none

“His clothes concealed the winding mechanism — his vest had a full front, but no back.  Pins secured it to a shirt of fine white linen, which had an open slit down the back from the neck to waist, displaying the clock work man’s innards.  I could see the heart of him, a golden drum stacked with rings of metal, each cut with grooves.  Surrounding the drum was a tangle of thin metal rods, thinly jointed pieces, and wheels and gears, some silver and some a duller, brassy sheen, all constructed with great delicacy.  Although I knew nothing of the workings of automatons, I had never seen a machine that came so close to art, and I started to run my fingers along the metal parts, only to snatch my hand away in surprise.  I had not expected them to feel warm.”

Summary:
Young Nimira, a singer from Lorinar, lives the life of a Trouser Girl.  Her profession, akin to burlesque, requiring her to show her legs and sing for leering men and a small bit of money in return.  That is until a fine upstanding gentleman by the name of Mr. Parry landed in the audience looking for a young woman to perform in a different kind of side show.  Hoping that she’ll be successful where others have failed Parry wants Nimira to sing with his automaton.  Desperate to get out from under the thumb of her current employer and hoping for a better life Nim agrees to Mr. Parry’s offer and travels beyond the land she knows so well to live in uncharted territory.

Upon her arrival Nim encounters a series of house workers and government officials — some attempting to make her comfortable others to intimidate.  It is through her interactions with each of these new people in her life that she quickly learns more of the automaton.  Hearing stories about those who performed with him prior to her employ Nim is conflicted about her decision.  In the end, duly warned of the failures of her predecessors, Nim vows to keep from being spooked by the mechanical nature of the automaton.

Though Nim is slightly tentative at their initial meeting the two immediately form a secret and lasting bond. A bond that lands Nim in the middle of political upheaval.    Working against time, mystical forces, war mongers and any number of evil doers seeking to control anything and everything they can Nim and the automaton fight side-by-side to bring about a peaceful resolution for them both.

Opinion:
Fantasy has never been one of my genres of choice but I have to say that I really enjoyed this book.  It was a very quick read and loads of fun.

The fairy world Dolamore created seemed to be just within the readers grasp yet still so far away in time.  It most definitely had an Asian vibe for me, kinda Memoirs of a Geisha lite, which made it feel more exotic and mystical.  A definite asset to the story for sure.

Nimira and the automaton were both extremely compelling characters.  In fact, for a virtually inanimate object the automaton was the most animated of them all.  He seemed to be so much more alive and outspoken than Mr. Parry and in many cases Nim herself.  His personality shone despite the rigid circumstances of his body, making him a really complex and dynamic character.

Dolamore also did a spectacular job relationship building.  Nim was the center of everything.  In particular, I liked the way Nim’s relationships with both Mr. Parry and the automaton developed and how Dolamore kept the reader guessing about where her loyalties ultimately lied. I’ll add in here that I have to admit I was worried about how the relationship between she and the automaton would develop and expand but was pleasantly surprised by their interactions and the ultimate outcome.

It’s difficult to really speak to some of what happened in the book as I am not a fan of spoiling twists and turns.  I will say that there were some interesting aspects to the story — some I anticipated and others that caught me off guard.  A fun and interesting ride with lots of great twists and turns I would advise people to definitely pick this one up. It’s an excellent book to dip your toe into the realm of fantasy.