Blog Tour: Arrowheart by Rebecca Sky (Guest Post + Giveaway)

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Title: Arrowheart
Author: Rebecca Sky
Series: The Love Curse, #1
Publisher: Hodder
Publication Date: June 14, 2018

Synopsis: Kiss the boys and make them cry... 

The gods are gone.
The people have forgotten them.
But sixteen-year-old Rachel Patel can't forget - the gods control her life, or more specifically, her love life.

Being a Hedoness, one of a strong group of women descended from Greek God Eros, makes true love impossible for Rachel. She wields the power of that magical golden arrow, and with it, the promise to take the will of any boy she kisses. But the last thing Rachel wants is to force someone to love her . . .
When seventeen-year-old Benjamin Blake's disappearance links back to the Hedonesses, Rachel's world collides with his, and her biggest fear becomes a terrifying reality. She's falling for him - a messy, magnetic, arrow-over-feet type of fall.

Rachel distances herself, struggling to resist the growing attraction, but when he gives up his dream to help her evade arrest, distance becomes an insurmountable task. With the police hot on their trail, Rachel soon realizes there are darker forces hunting them - a group of mortals recruited by the gods who will stop at nothing to preserve the power of the Hedonesses - not to mention Eros himself, who is desperate to reverse the curse . . .

Rachel must learn to do what no Hedoness has done before - to resist her gift - or she'll turn the person she's grown to love into a shadow of himself ... for ever.

About the Author: After graduating high-school, Rebecca Sky set out on a five-year, 24 Country exploration to find herself. She slept in a hammock in the Amazon Jungle, skinny-dipped off the West African Coast, ate balut and climbed the chocolate hills in the Philippines, and fell in love in Cuba (then again in Brazil, and a final time to a Rocker from Canada). Rebecca returned home to the West Coast captivated by the world and ready for another adventure. So she did what every wanderer does when standing still—began writing. Her work has since garnered over 20 million reads on Wattpad, and she’s had the opportunity to partner with some really great brands. She was featured in The New York Times and The Boston Globe, (check out those articles here). Her debut Arrowheart, book one in THE LOVE CURSE series is published by Hodder Children's Books a division of Hachette Book Group.


Guest Post:

Hi everyone! *waves*

I’m stoked to be here and share some of my weirdness, pet pictures, and most importantly what my favorite Greek Myth is. I’m Rebecca Sky, the author of ARROWHEART, which is about the strong female descendants of Greek God Eros who have the power to take the will of any boy they kiss…dun dun dun… I hope you enjoy this post and be sure to read through to the bottom for your chance to win an Owlcrate subscription box and your very own blue Arrowheart lipstick.

I grew up in a very religious home, and because of that I spent the majority of my childhood weekends in some form of Church activity like Sunday School. I was never very good at sitting still and was bored most of the time, which meant I’d find ways to self-entertain, ways that resulted in my being sent to time-out more often than I’d like to admit. I made a game of it though, throwing out one-liners that made the entire class burst into giggles and the teachers mumble prayers of serenity under breath.

Eventually they realized that time-out wasn’t helping any of us, (I mean, if I couldn’t sit still on the pew, why would the corner change things?). We came to the compromise that I could read my bible during lectures, which really meant I’d slip a comic book behind the cover and read that instead. I thought I’d found the key to surviving Sunday School until they caught me and told me that I was only allowed to read books from the church library. I begrudgingly searched through and pulled out a Greek/English bible thinking the writing on the spine looked kinda magical.

That was my first introduction to the Greek language and I was fascinated. I tried to teach myself by memorizing the Greek version of familiar passages. I couldn’t get enough and eventually took every book about Greece out of my local library, one of which was a book on mythology. I spent my days reading about the Gods and their wild adventures, and thought it was unfair that the Greeks got the cool Gods and my family’s God was boring (please, don’t tell my Nana I said that).

I’d often imagine the Greek Gods in my Sunday School stories – Samson the strong became Heracles the son of Zeus, etc.. So when I stumbled upon the bible verse Genesis 6:4, “when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them,” it wasn’t far-fetched for me to imagine that the sons of gods were the Gods of Olympus and that the offspring they had with human women where the Greek legends like Achilles and Hedone. The more my mind wandered the more Arrowheart book one of The Love Curse series formed.

And everyone knows, or should know, that you can’t write a story based off Greek Mythology and not have it centered on romance. I’d argue that mythology reflects the spirit of its people, and there is no mythology more romantic than Greek.

I knew I found my new favorite mythology when I learned that in Greek mythology it is taught that humans were born with 2 heads, 4 arms and 4 legs, and only one soul, but Zeus feared our power and cut us apart. Now we spend our lives searching for the other half of our soul. There’s something really beautiful about this concept, and for a hopeless romantic like myself, the idea of soul mates and a love that has the power to unite two individuals so perfectly is something I can get behind. And I did, you’ll see in Arrowheart that my character Rachel feels this way too, which makes it suck extra that she can never have it, because if she so much as kisses a guy her power will take his will away. But that’s a story for another time…

Thanks so much for hanging with me today on The Cozy Reading Corner’s blog! I’d love to connect and chat about Greek Mythology more. You can always find me on Twitter or Instagram. And as an added thank you, I’ll be giving away an Owlcrate subscription box.

Giveaway:
- 1 winner will win an Owlcrate Book Subscription Box.


For a chance to win, enter HERE!
xo
Rebecca Sky

P.S. Here’s a picture of my two babies!!! Aren’t they adorable?!


…

Here’s an excerpt of Arrowheart for you to check out:


Be sure to grab your copy of Arrowheart to read more! And for a limited time receive a Rockstar tours exclusive Blue Arrowheart Lipstick as a thank you gift. #KissTheBoysAndMakeThemCry

______________________________

-Kristen ♥

Where I Am

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GREETINGS FROM SUNNY FLORIDA!










It's time for the annual Baugh Cousins Reunion. It's a get together of siblings, 1st cousins, 1st cousins twice removed, nieces, nephews, and some brave souls who have married into this group. Every year, we pick a different venue, and this year we are in sunny, warm hot Boynton Beach, Florida (we base our venue decision based on school schedules):







A bunch of Baughs being serious (except me, I'm taking the picture)


Next year: Albany, NY so we can include my 94 year old uncle in the festivities.

I'll be back next week with new reviews of good books.





(This post was originally posted on Randomly Reading)

Jazz Owls: A Novel About the Zoot Suit Riots by Margarita Engle, art by Rudy Gutierrez

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It's 1942 in Los Angeles, California. America hasn't been in World War II very long, but already the country is doing maximum war effort work. And that includes Mexican American sisters Marisela, 16, and Lorena, 14, who work long, exhausting days in a cannery, canning fruits and vegetables that will be sent to the armed forces overseas. But when night comes, the sisters are escorted to the local USO by their younger brother Ray, 12, to dance the night away with navy recruits on leave before they ship out to fight in the Pacific. Oldest brother Nicolás is off fighting somewhere in the where.



Rau may only be 12, but he already identifies as a zoot suiter, wearing the large jacket and loose pants, he calls drapes, that are their signature style and giving dancers plenty of room for dancing the jitterbugging and lindy hop. One night, after dropping his sisters off at the USO, Ray heads to a private party at a place called the Williams Ranch. A fight breaks out there and some members from "the 38th Street gang" leave but later return to get revenge. Ray is beaten up pretty badly, and another teen named José Díaz is found with stab wounds, and dies the next day. Ray is arrested along with members of the gang.



Reporters slant the story about the so-called "Mexican Problem" and the zoot suiters in such a way that they influence their readers against them for being unpatriotic. First, because they are Mexican, and second, they feel the large amount of fabric in a zoot suit is a waste and should be used for the war effort instead. Eventually released, Ray and the other zoot suiters are now seen by police, reporters, and civilians as baby gangsters.



Meanwhile, Marisela meets an Afro Cuban musician named Manolito and the two fall in love and want to get married, but California's anti-miscegenation laws of 1941 prohibit them from doing that. Ironically, Marisela, though of Mexican descent and hated by whites for that, is still considered "white" under this law, and can even marry a white person, but not a person of African descent.



Tensions increase over the next 10 months, during which time the family learns that Nicolás is now Missing in Action. The trial for the murder of José Díaz also concludes with a conviction of "a bunch of Mexican kids" sent to San Quentin for life.



The convictions only serve to outrage the white sailors nearby, and one night they go on a rampage, terrorizing Mexican Americans, publicly beating and stripping any zoot suiters they find of their drapes and burning them, including Ray. Even though the police see what is happening, they do nothing to stop it, ultimately arresting a hundred kids and only two sailors.



Angry at the pervasive discrimination they experience and the unimaginable violence they witness against the Mexican American community, and the poor working conditions at the canneries and factories they employ them, especially when so many have family members fighting in a war for freedom, the Zoot Suit Riots have a profound impact on the future of all three siblings.



Jazz Owls tells the story of a not very well known part of American history. is a novel told in free verse. It is told mainly in the voices of Marisela, Lorena, and Ray, and to a lesser extent, by their Papá, Mami, Abuela, different reporters, sailors, police, and even the spirit of José Díaz. It sounds confusing, particularly since this is a relatively small volume, but each is realized to the extent that they need to be and plays a pivotal part in the narrative.



Jazz Owls is a work of historical fiction based on real events and gives readers a window into the lives of patriotic Mexican Americans living in California during World War II. By interrupting and interrogating the predominate narrative in much the same way that books about the lives of African Americans, Japanese Americans, and Chinese Americans do, it draws attention not only to the roles they played in helping to win the war, but also the unmitigated bigotry they were made to deal with on a daily basis.



Ray calls zoot suits drapes, and whenever I look at Rudy Gutierrez' incredibly expressive illustration on the cover of Jazz Owls I can see exactly what he means, it is sheer drape and one of the most striking covers I've seen in a long time.



Jazz Owls is a much needed addition to the body literature about WWII historical fiction based on a real event, and I believe today's readers may be surprised at how much the story of a Mexican American family and the racial hate they faced that led to the Zoot Suit Riots will most certainly resonate with them.



This book is recommended for readers age 12+

This book was borrowed from the NYPL




Book Blitz: The Changeling's Fortune by M.C. Aquila and K.C. Lannon (Excerpt + Giveaway)

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Title: The Changeling's Fortune
Authors: M.C. Aquila and K.C. Lannon
Series: Winter's Blight, #1
Publication Date: May 25, 2018

Synopsis: When optimistic seventeen-year-old orphan Deirdre travels to Neo-London, a city created after a near-apocalyptic attack by Unseelie faeries, she is caught in the tension between faeries and the Iron Guard, a militarized faction created to keep the peace. After a banshee tells her fortune, Deirdre develops destructive magical abilities but quickly discovers she cannot control them. These powers soon make her a target of Alan Callaghan, an extreme anti-faery general.

His sons, Iain and James, cross paths with Deirdre. Iain is a rookie soldier in the Iron Guard trying to atone for past mistakes and keep his younger brother from harm. James, a fourteen-year-old aspiring scholar fascinated by faeries, becomes fast friends with Deirdre. They soon plot to escape the barriers and lies of the city to find answers about her magic and James’s disappeared mother.

However, when Deirdre is framed for a treasonous crime, their search for answers soon becomes a quest for freedom. Beyond the iron walls of Neo-London that protect the city from the Winter Court lies a landscape of unchecked magic, faeries, and monsters.

The Changeling’s Fortune is the first installment in the six-book YA Urban Fantasy series, Winter's Blight.

About the Authors: M. C. Aquila graduated from Winthrop University with a degree in English. She grew up in Pittsburgh, PA but currently resides in South Carolina. When she is not co-writing the Winter's Blight series, she tutors both native and ESL students in English, giving her a renewed love for the strange wonderfulness of the language. She also enjoys drawing daily, baking recklessly, hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains, searching for the best red wine in existence, and reading any story with a villain she loves to hate.


K.C. Lannon graduated from the University of South Carolina with a Bachelor of Arts in English. When she is not co-writing the Winter's Blight book series, she tutors English, walks dogs, and dabbles in painting, drawing, or just making a general mess on paper. She enjoys cooking vegetarian meals, daydreaming she is a Gothic Heroine, and playing tabletop RPGs.




Excerpt:

Kallista Callaghan had heard the rumors: there was a faery in the Neo-London Hospital. In all her years of working as a nurse, she had never had a faery patient before. She was determined to see if there was any stock in the whispers that circulated the building. If what she heard was true, then Kallista had to act quickly.

Where are you, Marko? You’re late…

She tapped her foot impatiently and gazed out the wall of windows at the cityscape while she waited. A spring shower dotted the windows with rain, distorting the view of the city that had once been known as Portsmouth forty years ago, built up into a grand city that mirrored its namesake in small ways. The lights of Neo-London winked in the darkness, and the city was quiet. The maternity ward was also absent the usual cries of pain, cries of joy, cries of relief. Tonight only one infant was delivered. Tonight there was only stunned silence.

Hearing footsteps, Kallista looked up to see Marko, a fellow nurse, walk down the hallway to meet her, still in his hospital scrubs despite his shift having ended.

“I was about to go in without you,” Kallista informed him.

He placed his hand on her shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “Maybe you shouldn’t go in at all. Maybe you should go home to your husband and son, Kalli. Don’t get mixed up in this.”

“So what they’re saying is true.” Kallista rubbed her hands furiously on the front of her scrubs as sweat bloomed on her palms.

Marko nodded. “Supposedly, the mother threw half the staff against the wall when she went into labor—without even touching them. It was magic.”

“What business does a faery have at a maternity ward? They have their own healers, their own ways of doing things.”

“The father is human,” Marko answered. “You might’ve heard of both parents, actually. Aino and Oliver Windsor. They were just on the radio the other night, pushing for faery protection laws.”

Kallista’s eyes widened, and she nodded in understanding. This was not the first time she had heard of such a thing, a faery and a human marrying, but it was rare. She knew of the Windsor couple and of their outspoken criticism of the military system, only because her husband had been fighting against their proposals for years. Oliver’s relation to the king, his cousin, protected the couple’s objections.

“Do you really want to get involved?” Marko asked. “Chances are, we’ll have to smuggle the infant out of the city to get medical attention.”

“I told you before,” Kallista said. “I want to help.”

For several years, Marko had also been practicing medicine outside the hospital, offering his services to those who could not afford it. While he rarely brought up faeries around her, Kallista knew that his help often extended to them—even though human medicine could not help much in some cases. Still, Kallista wanted to be a part of that.

Marko smiled at her faintly. “You have a family. People who need you. People who would hate to see you in prison.”

She took his hand. “You have family too.”

“Not one that depends on me.” Marko gently pried her hand away; she pretended not to notice. A few of Marko’s relatives still lived in Neo-London after the government policies forced most of the Roma and Travellers away. His mother and father and a few cousins remained.

He looked her in the eye. “Kallista, are you sure?”

“I will see the baby. Then I will decide if I will help or not.” But she already knew her answer.

Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

-Kristen ♥

Blog Tour: Kiss of the Royal by Lindsey Duga (Teaser + Giveaway)

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Title: Kiss of the Royal
Author: Lindsey Duga
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Publication Date: July 3, 2018

Synopsis: In the war against the Forces of Darkness, the Royals are losing. Princess Ivy is determined to end this centuries-long conflict once and for all, so her new battle partner must succeed where the others failed. Prince Zach’s unparalleled skill with a sword, enhanced by Ivy’s magic Kiss, should make them an unstoppable pair—but try convincing Zach of that.

Prince Zach has spent his life preparing for battle, but he would rather be branded a heretic than use his lips as nothing more than a way to transfer magic. A kiss is a symbol of love, and love is the most powerful weapon they have—but try convincing Ivy of that.

With the fate of their world on the line, the battlefield has become a testing ground, and only one of them can be right. Falling for each other wasn’t part of the plan—but try convincing their hearts of that.

About the Author: Lindsey Duga is a middle grade and young adult writer with a passion for fantasy, science fiction, and basically any genre that takes you away from the real world. She wrote her first novel in college while she was getting her bachelor’s in Mass Communication from Louisiana State University. Other than writing and cuddling with her morkie puppy, Delphi, Lindsey loves catching up on the latest superhero TV show and practicing yoga.


Teaser:


Giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

-Kristen ♥

Book Blitz: Game of Secrets by Kim Foster (Excerpt + Giveaway)

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Title: Game of Secrets
Author: Kim Foster
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Publication Date: July 3, 2018

Synopsis: Felicity Cole sells flowers in the streets of Victorian London to feed herself and her young brother. But she has a close-guarded secret—her brother is a Tainted, born with special abilities that society fears and a shadowy organization called the Hunstsmen scours the country to eliminate. When Felicity becomes the target of one of these individuals, she discovers something horrible: she’s Tainted, too.

Rescued by a mysterious gentleman on the eve of execution, she's whisked away to a school funded by Queen Victoria, established to train selected Tainted into assassins in service of the crown.

Struggling to harness her incredible strength, speed, and agility, and despised by her classmates, all she wants is to use her new position to find a cure so she can be normal and reunited with her brother.

But with the Golden Jubilee fast approaching and the discovery that there’s a traitor in their midst, she has no choice but to embrace the one thing she’s been fighting all along.


About the Author: Kim Foster is the author of the Agency of Burglary & Theft series for adults and GAME OF SECRETS, her YA debut. She has a typical background for someone who writes thrillers about thieves and spies and criminals: she has a degree in medicine and is a practicing family doctor. (Don’t worry, it doesn’t make much sense to her friends and family, either.) She's addicted to yoga, loves to travel, and has a clinical weakness for dark chocolate with sea salt. She lives with her husband and their two young sons in Victoria, British Columbia.


Excerpt:

Movement around me slows. The mist from the horses’ nostrils hangs suspended in the air. Carriage wheels on cobbles and the bells from St. Paul’s Cathedral sound stifled—dampened and low.

I see everything at once. Time bends, curving around me.

Locals and customers cower in the market, screams frozen on their faces. They crouch behind carts. A surge goes to my muscles and somehow I know—I just know—I can do impossible things. I am not thinking. I am pure rage. A deep burning takes hold of my bones.

I reach Kit’s murderer in a heartbeat. Impossibly fast. Before he can fire his pistol again, I punch forward, catching him square in the throat. His eyes pop wide. I chop the hand that holds the gun and it skitters away on the ground. He staggers. I punch him again, smashing his nose, and blood spurts everywhere. I kick at his knees, sending him to the ground. I don’t know what I’m doing, or how I’m doing it, only that it’s coming from somewhere deep inside.

Everything around me is slow, like it’s moving through water. Sliding like molasses. But I am a spark. Fire. Lightning.

I hear the report of a gun—a dull, low rumble, not the sharp crack it should be—and I have time to spin. The bullet tears from the footman’s weapon in a plume of smoke. But I don’t feel the sharp agony of the shot. Instead, I see the bullet as it comes toward me. It moves through the air trailing a spiraling smoke wisp behind it like a comet. I slide out of the way, ducking easily underneath it.

With a slow, deep thud it slams harmlessly into a vegetable cart behind me, smashing into the cabbages and sending a fountain of dusty hay into the air.

And now the footman is mine.

Giveaway:
- One winner will receive a $20 Amazon eGift Card
- Open internationally, Ends July 5th

a Rafflecopter giveaway

-Kristen ♥

Fania's Heart by Anne Renaud, illustrated by Richard Rudnicki

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Back in 2015, I reviewed a book for teens called Paper Hearts by Meg Wiviott. A novel in verse, it told the story of two young Polish women, Zlaka and Fania, who were slave laborers in Auschwitz in 1944. At the center of the novel is a small heart, crafted by Zlatka for Fania's 20th birthday, and signed by all of the 19 girls that Fania worked with.



Now, this inspiring story has been is retold in a picture book for older readers by Anne Renaud. Fania had survived Auschwitz, and traveled to Canada after the war, married and had a daughter named Sorale, nicknamed Sandy. As a young child, Sandy understood that her mother had many secrets, among them were why she had no relatives - no mother, father, siblings, cousins. aunts or uncles, and why there was a tattooed number on her arm.



Then, one day, when Sandy was 10, she came across another of her mother's secrets. It was a tiny book shaped heart, with a purple cloth cover and the letter F embroidered in orange thread. Opening it up, she saw lots of words in different languages, but could only read a few names. Her mother finally told her daughter her secrets when Sandy asked her about the heart.



Fania begins with her imprisonment in Auschwitz, after being torn from her home and family because Hitler hated certain people, but especially Jews. In Auschwitz, she was no longer a human being but became a number - 74207.  She describes the deplorable conditions she and everyone else in Hitler's concentration camps were forced to live under, how she and the other girls in her barrack worked as slave laborers in a munitions factory making weapons for the German army, and how they tried to sabotage the what they made whenever they could, and then, how they were forced to walk a mile to and from the their job in all kinds of weather. All the while, Fania searched for her family among the other prisoners, but never saw them.



Although they lived in constant fear and extreme hunger, Fania and her friends would recall recipes and food they loved. One day, Fania mentioned she was going to turn 20 soon. Imagine her surprise when she was secretly handed a small handmade heart-shaped card from her friends on her birthday. The heart was a cherished bit of hope and resilience for Fania: "It is an act of defiance. A symbol of strength. An expression of hope and love. My friends wanted to prove that despite all that was inflicted upon us, we could still treat each other with humanity. Their words saved me."



The heart is also the only tangible thing Fania had left from her past.







Fania's Heart is a very moving story. It is historical fiction based on the true experiences of Fania Fanier, née Landau. This is such a well written, poignant story of resistance and survival under such  unimaginable circumstances. It begins from the point of view of her daughter Sandy, but seamlessly switches to Fania's voice, always shown in quotes. To her credit, Renaud has managed to describe the horrors of living in a concentration camp under the Nazis including enough reality without getting overly graphic, given he age of her target audience.



There is an interesting Author's Note at the end of the book that briefly describes how Hitler and the Nazis believed in the racial inferiority of certain groups of people, including Jews. It goes on to describe how Fania's heart was made and hidden from the Nazis. The heart was eventually donated to the Montreal Holocaust Museum, where it is on display.



I thought that Rudnicki's realistic watecolor illustrations captured so much truth about the harsh conditions in Auschwitz, but also the intensity of the friendships the girls developed with each other. The post-Auschwitz illustrations have a bit more clarity to them than the ones that involve Fania and her friends during the Holocaust, giving them  a real sense of being a focused part of Fania's memory.



While this is an excellent telling of Fania's important story, I do wish there had been more back matter, such as a more detailed biography of Fania's life before and after the war, and a list of suggestions for further reading. For this reason, it book felt incomplete to me.



This book is recommended for readers age 7+

This book was borrowed from the NYPL




So, who was Fania before she became 74207? Fania was born on December 12, 1924 in Bialystok, Poland. According to the Museum's website, she ended up in Auschwitz after a boy in Bailystok pointed to her and yelled "Jew!" Fania wasn't wearing the required yellow star and was immediately arrested. She never saw her parents, her brother Leybl, or sister Moushka again. Fania found herself first in Stutthof Concentration Camp doing forced labor. In 1943, she was transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she was put to work in the munitions factory there. In 1945, as the Russians advanced towards Auschwitz, the Nazis decided to evacuate Auschwitz in an attempt to hide their crimes there, and Fania was part of a forced death march of prisoners. She survived the march and was deported to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Once again, she survived and after the war, she moved to Toronto, Canada.



If you are wondering how such an elaborate heart could be made under such stringent conditions, you might want listen to the creator of the heart, Zlatka Pitluk (née Snajderhauz). It's in German or Yiddish, but there are subtitles: