Giveaway for The Waking Dream by Jennifer Ford

Today, I'm lucky enough to be hosting a giveaway from Jennifer Ford, author of The Waking Dream. She has offered to e-mail this book anywhere in the world, so anyone can join in! Read the information underneath to find out if this book for you, and be sure to come back on Monday for the Blog Tour stop and my review of the book!!!!

Two cities. A forgotten past. Destiny comes to call.

Cut off from the outside world by a hostile desert full of savage secrets, the city of Illamar must fend for itself. Late one night, Dante Montero, Commander and Ruler of Illamar, is confronted on his own streets by a mysterious woman bearing an ominous message from a dangerous man known only as Rasheim. Dante and his close friend Kerran, Captain of the Guard, rush to discover the identity of Rasheim and the nature of the threat posed against their city. The closer they get to the truth, the more their worlds begin to fall apart. Both men will have to rely heavily on their friendship as they struggle to comprehend the events happening around them, their past, and even the truth about themselves. They must move quickly and choose wisely, for time is running out as Dante and Kerran discover a secret plot is already underway to destroy their city and kill every last person alive. It seems the answers they so desperately need can only be found in a sequence of dreams, but in a world where nothing is as it seems, even their dreams could turn out to be deadly.

·        What types of readers will be interested in your book?

Obviously, anyone who enjoys the Fantasy/Science Fiction genre would enjoy it; but beyond that, anyone who enjoys a well-crafted story. My book does have a strong, heroic woman as one of the main characters. It is a fast moving story that quickly takes you to the heart of the action and dilemma faced by the two stars of the book- Dante Monterro and Kerran Gurtene. It has already been enjoyed by people of all ages; from young adult to mature adult.  If you are a person that enjoys to read, then you will definitely enjoy my book. It follows a non-conventional path that should intrigue even the most experienced fantasy, Sci-Fi, mystery, or fiction reader.

·        What is special about your book?  What differentiates it from other books in the same category? 

I take what I consider to be a more classical approach to storytelling. I leave a lot of the baser descriptions to the reader’s imaginings so I can focus more directly on moving the story along. This makes it appealing to more than just fantasy fans. I have had people read my book that actually do not like the fantasy genre at all, but they really enjoyed The Waking Dream. It carries a lot of focus on the characters, and how these two men discover hidden value in unexpected characters they encounter. This makes my story non-predictable yet identifiable to the reader.

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Blog Tour- The Stone of Darkness by Resa Nelson

Today I am the stop for Resa Nelson's tour for Stone of Darkness. I'm going to be reviewing the book, then there is (not-so) mini-interview with Resa to follow! To see all stops so far, click here.

This may contain some very mild spoilers from Book 1, but mostly remains without spoilers pertaining either to this one or preceding books.

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In Stone of Darkness we return to Astrid and follow her as she tries to discover exactly what the Stone of Darkness is, and in process finds herself embroiled in the conflict with the Krystr- something she has never avoided, but never found herself heavily involved in. She has accepted her role as a Dragonslayer, but she still doesn’t know truly who she is, or her own heritage.

It was like a breath of fresh air to return to Astrid after almost 6 months, and I’m glad to say she’s still as fantastically riveting and interesting as ever. I struggled in places to remember people since I only remembered some of the main side characters, such as Lenore, Randim, Drageen, The Alchemist, Norah, DiStephan, Vinchi and Margreet. Other ones I didn’t remember I often did in time, but the first 40 or 50 pages or so were a bit confusing due to my incomprehension, but I managed to keep going and figure out who everyone was without going back to the first few books. But admittedly, I would advise anyone has read the others to perhaps read them again prior to this, just so it’s all fresh in your mind!

The story itself followed the similar track of the last two books of travelling between settlements and reading accounts of the events and conversations that take place. It means that Resa strikes a great balance between detailed, traditional fantasy and the faster more action-orientated modern fiction. It stops you from being other bored or overwhelmed, which once again makes this book a joy to read.

I was perhaps a little disappointed that the blacksmithing didn’t come into the story as much. I accept that the other side-stories perhaps are more important and indeed we could say her pre-occupation of being away from home precedes the necessity of not allowing for a great deal of blacksmithing- since she would need her own tools and smithy. Yet still I missed what was almost a learning experience when it came to the blacksmithing.

The world created by Resa is one of a complex heritage, and through Astrid we really get an idea of just how large this world is- very much beyond the village of Guell. Astrid feels the same way some people do when they travel for the first time to a foreign country- not being able to speak the native language and not knowing exactly where you might be brings home the fact that were you come from is small in comparison to the world. But it also highlights how foreigners aren’t aliens or all bad. This was part of book two, and perhaps book three merely enlarges the scale of this realisation.

Mystery is a theme in the book from the start, and as it continues new problems or questions arise- only some of which are answered and even then only partially. Originally a Blacksmith, Astrid’s problem lies in the fact that blacksmithing (I think) is a straightforward art. Doing one thing will lead to an (expected) consequence. But the chaos that grips Astrid’s world- both in a large scale and a small scale- makes it difficult for Astrid to know what to do. And we must also remember she is still relatively new to Dragonslaying too.

But Astrid is as commendable here as with most of her qualities. She’s not perfect (boy, is she not) but she feels a great deal of loyalty and responsibility to the world and the people around her. She comments in the first book (I think) that a blacksmith is responsible for everyone in a village because they make the tools used in other trades and the weapons used for defence. This duty transfers itself to the whole world and Astrid, in everything, is assured of this. She is very much a heroine in her ideas of the world and what is right, but she still remains damnably human and makes mistakes fairly often.

So, in conclusion, it was a great sequel to books two and one. I don’t think someone could just pick up this book and manage; you’d need to read the others. It wouldn’t be impossible, but I think it would overcome your inevitable confusion. But the merit of these books lies in the fact that they manage to give you a brilliant read in less than 300 pages and even manage to combat question on free-will and feminism which all appeal greatly to me as a reader. Intelligent, concise and entertaining. What more do you want from a book?

Click to find out more about Resa!

Mini-Interview

·         Where did the idea for the Iron Maidens come from? I felt, personally, that they did make sense ideologically, but did you set out early on to do them or decide whilst writing?

The Iron Maidens showed up out of the blue.  When I was writing The Stone of Darkness, my main character Astrid ended up in a real bind.  Even though I write fantasy, I want to make the action and the world as realistic as possible.  Astrid was in such a tight spot that I couldn’t see a believable way for her to get out of it by herself.  Normally, I like Astrid to solve her own problems, but everyone needs help once in a while.  So I started thinking about who might be travelling in the region where she was located that could help her, but I couldn’t think of any good solutions.  All of a sudden, the Iron Maidens popped into my head.  I immediately knew who they were and why they were there and how they came into being.  That’s one of the things I really love about writing.  Sometimes magic happens.

·         How do you feel writing from the point of view of the Krystr? These hateful misogynists make my blood boil just reading them, and I wonder how you feel writing them. Angry? Sad? Accepting?

Click for my review

Alex, thank you so much for asking me this question.  I’ve been hoping someone would for the longest time!  I believe that villainous people in real life (for example, Hitler) typically thought (or think) they’re 100% in the right and that they’re doing the world a favor.  I wanted to show how every man who’s a Krystr has a background and experiences that shaped who he is and what his opinions are.  I wanted to get into their heads and understand their point of view.  They feel justified.  They believe they’re doing the right thing.  They see themselves as heroes.  And when I researched the Middle Ages, I learned that women were considered to have less value than some animals!  That tells me that men must have felt that women were on the same level as animals, not human beings.  So the Krystrs are based on how many real men thought and acted in medieval times.  While I was writing, I started thinking about how we often learn our first opinions and beliefs from our families, and how some people never really change those first opinions and beliefs.  I know there have been some ancient cultures (such as the ancient Egyptians and the Vikings) that treated women well, but as far as I can tell, most didn’t.  I thought about how for thousands of years people have considered women as “less than” men and how these beliefs go back to times when women were considered to be on the same level as animals.  All of a sudden, I thought about how difficult it is to change beliefs that have lasted in families for hundreds and thousands of years.  It takes strength and courage and a strong sense of self to form your own opinions and to break hundreds or thousands of years of traditional thought.  All of a sudden, I felt deeply sorry for my Krystr characters because they don’t have that kind of strength or courage or sense of self.  They’re just doing what other men before them have done without question.  I think the most tragic figure in the series is Gershon because he comes so close to doing the right thing only to cave into peer pressure by Krystrs who are simply manipulating him for their own purpose.  He almost does the right thing, but he fails.  I think he’s keenly aware of what he’s done, and it will haunt him forever.  He never forgives himself.  Ironically, writing the Krystr characters has taught me to have compassion for men who act like them in our world.  I feel sorry for them in the same way I feel sorry for Gershon and the Krystrs.  So writing these characters actually changed part of who I am.

·         Can I ask about the dragons? As you said in the first interview of the tour (which everyone can see here) you’ve playing it close to the chest so far. I was wondering more about where they came from? They seem omniscient and in many ways omnipotent. Are they meant to be so superior?

About all I can say without ruining Book 4 is that there are serious reasons for the dragons to be the way they are.  Once you learn that reason, I think everything will fall into place and make sense.  I know I’m not really answering your question, but I can’t figure out how to talk about them without ruining the last book in the series.  I will say that there are a lot of answers in Book 4.  And some surprises that I didn’t see coming until they happened!

Click for my review

·         Less to do with the story, but…

When you write, do you set out to right books at the length you do? I assume you’d write what needs to be written and not worry about the numbers, but I’ve always been amazed at how you do so much in such a short book- and it’s especially odd for me since I’m so used to long fantasy novels. I just wonder about your writing process and whether you feel it has an impact on the book length?

I think my writing reflects my personal impatience with reading.  I love mysteries and thrillers.  My favorite modern-day author is Harlan Coben, who makes me want to turn every page.  When a new Harlan Coben book comes out, I set aside a weekend to do nothing but read, because I know I HAVE to read his book without interruption (except for sleeping) until I finish it.  I like books that move at a good clip.  I get bored easily.  I need a book to capture my attention and keep it.  I feel the same way when I’m writing.  The last thing I want to do is bore anyone who reads my work – and I can’t stand to be bored while I’m writing it!  When it comes to my process, I begin by daydreaming about what the book might be like.  Then I nail down some specific things:  what I want to do thematically, the beginning, a few important things in the middle, and the end.  I also need to understand the overall journey of the main character and sometimes other characters – what they learn, how they grow and change because of what happens in the book.  But when I sit down to write each chapter, I feel like I’m in a movie and I’m just frantically writing down everything I see that’s happening all around me.  So I don’t really aim for a specific number of overall pages in the book.  I just want to make it long enough to feel like a novel and short enough so hopefully no one gets bored!

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Some extra little links...as a reward for having read everything above!!!:

• Sample Writing (mini-ebook!)
• Goodreads giveaway 
• Buying links:
• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Mundania (10% discount with code MP10 at checkout)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

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This story recounts a small section in the life of one Liesel Meminger, a nine-year-old foster child, as she lives in Munich during World War II and the people she comes into contact with during this small period. And the narrator of this story? Death himself.

Reading that little summary, I myself would have doubted how good this book could be and would have thought it liable to be extremelye preachy and generally dislikable. This was not the case, and even early on in the book, I feel this is made clear. Death, the character, isn't some figure of malevolence; he is funny, insightful and (despite the irony) remarkably human. It is only towards the end that it made clear that he is not human- he is something more. But the book does not dwell on such things. This is the story of Liesel, not death's job during World War II. Personally, I felt in some ways death was used as the narrator because in our minds he is as unsympathetic and as cruel a thing we can think of, especially in a War environment. Many would see him as snatching away their children- why not let them survive? But he makes it clear that it is his job to collect the souls and allow them to move on. He takes no life prematurely- he has no choice in the matter of taking them.

The story is ultimately about the power of words. It begins as reading and how that helps Liesel escape and then it begins to transform. Seeds of ideas are planted in her, and they grow and take on new life to her. She begins illiterate and yet she becomes a force to be reckoned with- this small German girl. There is the wonderful passage when she is angry and it says how the words which until then had merely moved beneath the surface suddenly break through. Then she knows what to say, how to say and, most importantly, why it needs to be said.

The setting of World War II is fantastic for showing this because Hitler himself is well-known as being a great orator. He managed- with words and manipulation- to unite a struggling country and keep them united despite almost all hardship. I do not deny ths importance of Nazi military might or any of the more heinous things he did, but he began as man who spoke with zeal and could inspire those around him. (Maybe I'm baffling a bit; half of my A-Level- a pre-University qualification- is based on Germany in the 1900s.)

When it comes to characters, I thought they were all brilliant. I loved Rudy, Hans, Rosa and Max because Zusak wrote such believable and wonderful characters. They didn't fall easily into the stereotypes we have of people living in that era (within reason). Part of the way he did that was by not letting the era define them. War doesn't touch Munich very much until well into the book and even then it is mostly sporadic. This distance from War both allows for comparison and stops this book becoming preachy.

But my favourite character was Death himself. Liesel was smart, hopeful and reaslistic girl but at the same time she was the hero and, frankly, I find her less interesting in comparison to Death. Part of the reason she is important and notable is because Death sees her as such. But Death has a personality and a colourful (no pun intended) one at that. Though it isn't expressly said, I feel as though he dislikes death. He talks about the colours of the sky when he collects a soul, since he doesn't want to look into another dead face, another pair of empty eyes. His eternal existence has also left him cynical and often poetic. Perhaps it is ironic that Death enjoys quite simple pleasures as an interesting phrase (but then, that is what I saw the theme as).

I think that this is too long a book to sum up, and the ideas it explores render near impossible to sit down and narrow my thoughts of this book down concisely and precisely. The only other thing I much mention (without giving away anything) is the end. Simply put, it was the kind of ending you accept as inevitable but dislike all the same.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

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(You have probably heard what the story is since this novel did its rounds on blogs ages ago, but in case you didn't...) This book follows Cas Lowood who, like his father before him, is a killer of the dead- ghost or otherwise. In addition to this he has to contend with being a teenager and trying to make a somewhat normal life for himself. When he and his mother come to the town of Thunder Bay, his usual method of killing the dead is disrupted by something he never expected.

I have to say I was highly wary about approaching this book. By the time it had my interest, the hype had been so built up and so great that I doubted it would live up to my expectations. I spent some time convincing myself that it wouldn't reach this hype because (a) it's not what I would consider my kind of book and (b) the hype was way, way too high.

Yet I do think this is a fantastic book and is truly gripping. Some of the elements of horror didn't really feel scary for me (and I'm really jumpy) so this may bug some people, but I don't think it is meant as a scary book. And anyway, it wasn't important. And the single thing that made this book so awe-inspiringly awesome was Anna herself. I think she is probably one of my favourite characters ever.

On one hand, she appeals to my urban fantasy side. I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying she is an insanely powerful individual, which I just loved when reading about it. So many romances seem to like making romance interesting or edgy by giving one of the participants a dark mysterious past, or by simply telling us how the protagonist feels threatened. Now, Blake does all this BUT she before doing us she shows us without a shadow of a doubt why exactly you don't mess with Anna and how she is the genuine article of bad-assery.

And then on the other hand, she's simply a great character. Her back-story is so, so sad and soul destroying that despite the horror surrounding her, you can sort of understand her. And then when the whole "Goddess of Death" thing starts to come into perspective, you can begin to understand her as the shy, adorable individual she is.

Don't get me wrong, Cas is great and the story about the Dad and how everything ties in is gripping and makes for great reading, but I doubt I would have loved this book as much if not for Anna. I actually thought the story itself was predictable and I guessed what would happen when the cat growls near the start.

One thing I thought might have perhaps been better if it had been looked at a bit more was the whole disjointedness of the romance. It was never going to be like Lia Habel's Dearly, Departed; but I do believe more should have been made of it. The limit of consideration was "This is weird, but it doesn't matter because love surpasses all."

So overall fantastic. You should read this just to see Anna in action.

The Magician King by Lev Grossman

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Following the events of the magicians, Quentin Coldwater is now one of the Kings of Fillory. It’s something he never dared to dream he’d have…but he’s still not happy. He’s restless. In trying to find occupation in adventure, Quentin stumbles upon something much more cosmically important leading to revelations and undesirable outcomes.

Though this is a sequel to The Magicians, this book doesn’t really feel that way to me. There are some references to Alice and Brakebills (the magic school) days, but they are almost pointless in the grand scheme of things. If you haven’t read the Magicians, it won’t be a problem in terms of understanding the story. I mean, if the names had been changed this could have easily been a separate stand-alone novel. For me, this wasn’t the best choice since what I like about sequels is those nods to the first book or when something in book one directly affects book two. For me these weren’t really there, and though I can appreciate the book it doesn’t feel like too much of a sequel to me personally.

The magic aspect was also elusive. The world was fantastical and there were other times when the magic of landscape was obvious, but other times it felt like the book had forgotten it was a fantasy book and things like magic were forgotten. Book one was a bit like this, but not to the extreme of the Magician King. There is only really one bit that this seems to go away, when Quentin is blasting magic left, right and centre.

But this highlights the crafting that has gone into the book. One thing Quentin says is that he doesn’t feel like a king, let alone a magician, most of the time. By the lack of magic and these things, we really feel this too. And it annoyed me, even enraged me, which only meant I could understand Quentin better.

This was the same for the general idea of Fillory and “real-life magic”. Quentin reminds us every few chapters that magic in books is often good and there is always a happy ending. Even the sadder endings are not so harsh on the characters. This book is not like that though. Even though book one improved at it’s very, very end, the whole final sequence was heart-wrenching and one of the most depressing endings I’ve ever read. In the Magician King, I’m reminded of this again. I don’t want to give anything away, but Quentin’s fate is almost unforgiveable. That one line that Elaine gives just made my heart sink, since I knew it wouldn’t end well after that.

There are also other dark elements involved, especially in Julia’s story. She was never accepted to magic school so she pursued magic however she could and sacrificed almost everything dear to her to get it. And how did that end up? For a long time it was horrifying for her. There’s this one scene which I shan’t repeat and which I don’t even like to think about which disgusted and depressed me so much. But at the same time I couldn’t stop reading. It’s was gripping and, though it pains me to say, realistic.

On a personal level, I struggle to read Grossman’s book. I get headaches from trying to process so much and some of the events genuinely affect me and my view of life for a short. I’ll be depressed, or feel lost, if only for a few hours. That could just be me (!!!) but I credit some of it to these books and these stories that seem to affect me so much. Sometimes I was just reading in a daze.

This book is something else, in a good and bad way. It’s bad in that I sometimes just want to walk away from this book and turn my back on some detestable truths, but then it is just so good at the same time that I can’t even begin to explain. This whole review is my trying to just give you a glimpse of how I feel about these books because in all honesty it’s so mixed up and indecipherable even for me. So read these if you want something magnificently compelling, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.