Showing posts with label author. Show all posts
Showing posts with label author. Show all posts

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Lailah by Nikki Kelly Book Blitz: Interview & Giveaway!!






Title: Lailah
Series: The Styclar Saga #1
Author: Nikki Kelly
Release Date: October 7th
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Summary from Goodreads:
The girl knows she’s different. She doesn’t age. She has no family. She has visions of a past life, but no clear clues as to what she is, or where she comes from. But there is a face in her dreams – a light that breaks through the darkness. She knows his name is Gabriel.


On her way home from work, the girl encounters an injured stranger whose name is Jonah. Soon, she will understand that Jonah belongs to a generation of Vampires that serve even darker forces. Jonah and the few like him, are fighting with help from an unlikely ally – a rogue Angel, named Gabriel.


In the crossfire between good and evil, love and hate, and life and death, the girl learns her name: Lailah. But when the lines between black and white begin to blur, where in the spectrum will she find her place? And with whom?


Gabriel and Jonah both want to protect her. But Lailah will have to fight her own battle to find out who she truly is.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18324459-lailah?ac=1



Pre-Order Today!


"An extraordinarily imaginative look into the realms of good, evil, and all that comes in between. Lailah will have you gripped until the very end." -Brittany, Please Feed the Bookworm

“Lailah: Original. Swoonworthy. Captivating. Lailah will make you have all the FEELS, and you’ll find yourself flailing for Book #2, Gabriel!” -Andrew, Endlessly Reading

“Lailah is a fast-paced read that will keep you hooked from cover to cover." -Jess, The Book Bratz

“Lailah is paranormal romance like you have never read before. With its hauntingly beautiful writing it will have you craving for more!” -Dana, Dana Square

“AHHHHHHHH! (in a good way)” - Ri, Hiver & CafĂ©

“Dark. Sexy. Intriguing. Filled with twists and turns and set on a beautiful backdrop, Lailah is sure to enchant and haunt you from the start.” -Rachel, A Perfection Called Books


Q&A with Nikki Kelly! 

What inspired you to write LAILAH?
As all the best stories start... ‘I had a dream!’
Seriously, that’s what happened.
I dreamed of Lailah, and the thought of her simply wouldn’t leave me.

If you could only have one book with you on a deserted island, what would it be?
The Lord of the Rings (I’m taking the box set – I don’t care what you say!)
First, they are some of my favorite books of all time.
Second, because I would be reminded that there are worse places to be than stuck on a desert island, such as Mordor, and at least I don’t have the worry of Orcs and the Nazgul.

Who are your favorite YA authors?
Lori Goldstein
Leigh Bardugo
Jessica Brody
Gennifer Albin
Marissa Meyer
Stephanie Meyer
Charlaine Harris
Mary Pearson
Ann Aguirre
Veronica Roth
... the list could go on and on and on...

What book introduced you to YA?
Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1)—Charlaine Harris

How do you write SwoonWorthy moments?
With plenty of swoon ;)
Okay... if you want to get really technical...
When writing a swoon-worthy moment, I think about the five senses – sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch – and I incorporate them into the descriptive language, which helps build the scene. I try to keep an ambiguity around ‘will they, won’t they’ when writing these moments, building them up, only to knock them down again, ready for the next round!

Do you have any traditions you do before you sit and write?
Boil the kettle...
Brew a teapot...
Put my headphones on, and gear myself up for a long writing stretch!

You’re watching TV; what TV show are you watching?
I tend to watch Netflix and almost always re-runs of The Office (American version).
If I switch on the TV, it’s likely that I will be watching The Big Bang Theory.

Who is your ultimate Book Boyfriend? (No cheating!!!)
That’s such an unfair question.
A—I have many!
B—the top spot on that list changes on a book by book basis!
Right now I am loving Tobias from Divergent, having just read the first book! Strong, rugged and brooding... *Le Sigh* *Le Swoon* and, yes, *fans oneself*!

What inspires you most to write? (Songs, dreams, surroundings..etc.)
Lailah came to me in a dream and stayed with me, so I’d say dreams inspire me most. But when it comes to the writing process, I would find it far more difficult to get in the mood to write an action scene, for example, without first playing the ‘Rocky’ soundtrack! Music is SO important.

Why did you decide to write YA?
The best advice I ever received about writing was to 'write what you know, and write what you love.' For me that was YA Fantasy with some uber-swoon thrown in!

What books would you recommend to readers who enjoyed your book?
Lailah is a YA Paranormal Romance / Fantasy, so I'd probably recommend other YA PNR novels… Oh and I have thrown in a few of my fave YA's that aren't necessarily PNR! 


Mortal Instruments—Cassandra Clare
Sookie Stackhouse Novels—Charlaine Harris
The Vampire Diaries—L. J. Smith
Unremembered Trilogy—Jessica Brody
Becoming Jinn (Spring '15)—Lori Goldstein
Divergent—Veronica Roth

Styclar Street Team!

The Styclar Street Team is essentially bloggers and readers who are fans of the story, and wish to declare and spread their love for Styclar!

MEMBERS
Want to become a member of the Styclar Street Team? We'd love to have you!

If you've read Lailah, enjoyed the story, and want to get involved, simply take a selfie with your copy of the book, and tweet it with the following hashtag: #StyclarStreetTeam

Be sure to also email the photo direct to Nikki — nikki@thestyclarsaga.com and your awesome selfie will be uploaded to the Street Team page of The Styclar Saga website! (http://www.thestyclarsaga.com/">www.thestyclarsaga.com
)

Check out the page to grab buttons for your site, find out about how you can participate in the latest spreading the Styclar word activities' and enter special giveaways!

Nikki's going on the Fierce Reads Tour in October! Want to meet her? Check out the stops here: http://fiercereads.com/">http://fiercereads.com/




About the Author:

NIKKI KELLY was born and raised only minutes away from the chocolately scent of Cadbury World in Birmingham, England. Lailah was first launched to wattpad, an online readers and writers community. Within six months, the novel had over one million reads. Lailah is Nikki’s debut novel, and the first book in The Styclar Saga. She lives in London with her husband and their dogs, Alfie (a pug) and Goose (a Chihuahua).





Sunday, June 22, 2014

Showcase Sunday #38!



Showcase Sunday is a weekly feature hosted by Vicky of Books, Biscuits, and Tea where all book lovers can share with others what bookish goodness we got this week, be it purchased (physical or eBook), won, gifted or for review!

This week was a bit more quiet on the book front, but that doesn't mean that I didn't get any books, just not as many as the past weeks! Still, I got some really cool books!




I finally got my preorder of Hexed by Michelle Krys that I had won in a giveaway (THANK YOU NOVA)!! I really cannot wait to read this one, hopefully soon!

And I also got myself a signed copy of Threats of Sky and Sea by Jennifer Ellision after reading and loving an ARC for the blog tour!




Jennifer also sent me some amazing swag! That cover is gorgeous and that blue is my favourite colour! Thank you so much!



Purchased (via Kindle app)



Ruin & Rising by Leigh Bardugo



As You Turn Away by Molli Moran



For Review (via NetGalley)

Thank you so much Harlequin Teen for the approvals on these!



Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley



Rain by Amanda Sun


And that's all for this week! Quite a nice haul after all!
What all did you guys get this week?

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Blog Tour: The Star Thief by Jamie Grey!!


Hello everyone! Today I'm super happy to take part on the blog tour for The Star Thief by Jamie Grey! Even more because today IS release day for The Star Thief!

I'm gonna be sharing my review and a tour wide giveaway, as well as having Jamie Grey over for an interview, but first things first, let me introduce you to the book and the author!



The Star Thief by Jamie Grey
(The Star Thief Chronicles #1)
Publication Date: February 4th, 2014
Genres: New Adult, Science Fiction

Synopsis:
She might only be twenty-three, but Renna Carrizal is the most notorious thief in the galaxy. There’s just one problem – all she wants is to get the frak out of the business.

But when Renna rescues an injured boy from the warehouse she’s casing, she finds herself on the run from the mob instead of enjoying retirement on a garden world. Turns out, the kid was a plant to lead her to MYTH, a top-secret galactic protection agency.

MYTH needs Renna’s special skills, and they make her an offer she can’t refuse – unless she'd like to spend the rest of her life on a prison ship. To make sure she does her job they shackle her with a MYTH watchdog, the handsome but arrogant Captain Finn.

A former mercenary-turned-galactic-hero, Finn happens to have his own dirty secrets. Secrets that Renna wouldn’t mind uncovering for herself. Together, they discover an experiment to develop illegal cybernetics that will create an unstoppable army. The intended target? The human star fleet.

Now Renna must use her skills as the Star Thief to pull off the biggest job of her career – saving the galaxy. And herself.


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19146092-the-star-thief?ac=1




 About the author:

Jamie Grey spent most of her childhood writing stories about princesses who saved the day and pretending to be a daring explorer. It wasn’t until much later that she realized she should combine the two. Now, as a tech-obsessed gamer geek, her novels mix amazing scientific developments, future worlds, and the remarkable characters that live in them.

Jamie lives in Michigan with her significant other and their pets, who luckily tolerate her overspending on tea, books, and video games.


Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads




Interview with Jamie Grey

Today I'm so very honoured to have Jamie to answer a few questions about herself and The Star Thief!


When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Always? I remember writing down stories as a kid, making little books for my parents and illustrating them. Then about five years ago I stumbled on a critique site, joined and started getting feedback on my writing. I realized that maybe I could actually write things that people wanted to read. I’ve been hooked ever since!


What drew you to the sci-fi genre?
It’s funny, I actually started out writing fantasy. I loved those kinds of books as a kid - getting lost in different worlds, meeting new people. But then I started watching a few sci-fi TV shows a couple of years ago and realized the two genres were actually similar, just with different settings. Somehow when I started writing sci-fi everything just clicked, I felt comfortable and at home. It was surprising, but I’m just going with it for now I have to say, I’m kind of a genre chameleon so I’m sure I’ll be trying out something new soon!


What made you decide to publish as an indie-author?
I’ll be honest, it was a tough decision. I’d always thought that I’d be traditionally published, but with all the changes going on in the industry, and after some great feedback from agents, I decided the best thing for my career right now was to go indie. Everything is in so much flux that I wanted to see what happened before taking that leap. And honestly, I haven’t regretted it once! I’m actually mad at myself for not self publishing sooner. It’s so much fun to see a book from start to finish, to pick the cover and design the interior and make sure everything is just the way I want it. It’s perfect for my control-freak self! And the instant gratification is fantastic!


How did you decide to take the newly growing New Adult genre and go the science fiction route with it in this trilogy?
I actually started writing STAR THIEF several years ago. I’d originally planned for it to be adult, but when YA Sci-fi took off, I decided I’d rewrite it for that market. And then I promptly hated the book and gave up.

So last year when I saw that New Adult was starting to be a thing, I realized that’s what I’d been writing all along. As soon as I started rewriting the book, everything clicked. STAR THIEF had finally found it’s place! I loved the freedom that I had to make Renna who she really was - vulgar language and sex-obsessed and all. Something you can’t really do with YA. And the opportunity to explore the issues new adults face was so much fun. Even better, using a sci-fi genre allowed me to play with a lot of different things that hadn't really been done in the NA realm. I really loved creating this world and these characters!


How would you describe the plot for The Star Thief plot using science fiction shows/movies?
That’s tough. I think maybe you could call it Battlestar Gallactica meets Farscape, with a tiny bit of Alias and Firefly thrown in?


What other science fiction heroes or heroines from science fiction tv shows or movies would you use to describe Renna?
Oh fun. Love this question! Well, she’s very good at looking out for herself and loves to be girly, so she’s a bit like Inara from Firefly in that regard. She’s kick ass and tough like Kara Thrace/Starbuck in Battlestar Gallactica. And a total anti-hero with a heart of gold like Han Solo from Star Wars.

Thanks so much for having me on your blog, Pili!!! This has been so much fun!

Thank you so much for being here, Jamie! I knew that Renna felt a bit like Han Solo to me when I was reading!


My Review

When I heard that the next book by Jamie Grey, the author of one of my fave debuts this year Ultraviolet Catastrophe, was going to publish a Science Fiction New Adult trilogy I knew I needed to read it. And so when Jamie sent me an ARC for the first book, The Star Thief, I was thrilled! I am not a big fan of the current overload of New Adult books out there, but I guess it also has to do with the fact that most are romance & contemporary and those are not my fave genres.

That was confirmed when I started reading The Star Thief, from page one it is science fiction with a kick ass heroine that is on the wrong side of the law.

Renna has been a thief since she was a young girl taken in by a gang and now she's 23 and she's the best thief of the galaxy and she wants to retire. She takes one final job before her retirement but when she can't help but rescue a lil boy during her mission everything goes wrong. The whole job happened to be a set up to get her to rescue the boy and then be captured by MYTH, an intergalatic agency, that offer her her freedom in exchange for joining them for a very dangerous mission to save the galaxy.

The team Renna will join are quite distrustful of her, since they're the elite part of the law, and she's a very famour thief. And to add insult to injury, the captain of the team is someone she held dear and thought dead for a while and now that he is back between the living seems to hate her with a passion. Not the best way to embark yourself in a difficult mission.

Captain Finn/Hunter & Renna have a bad start to their relationship since he treats her essentially like trash and Renna doesn't take it lying down and there's a lot of resentment and misscomunication in there to wade through. They have to work together and at first none of them is pleased about that, though they end up respecting each other's abilities. And from then on the relationship builds up and they finally find themselves into high adrenaline situations that make them throw caution to the wind. I might have been a bit unsure of how good idea them hooking up on certain situations was, but what I liked even in that situation is that Renna was never passive about anything, she knew what she wanted and went for it, even if she had to be cornered to admit her feelings. Quite a welcome change having the female character being the one that has compromise & trust issues!

I loved Renna as a character, she was strong, resourceful, wouldn't back down or take shit from anyone and although she had spent all of her adult life putting herself first and not trusting anyone, she has a big kind streak hidden in her. One that she ends up listening to more than once and that makes her one hell of a hero to root for.

Despite all his issues with Renna at first, Finn never considered her less for being female or thought she'd need protecting and saving, and they end up making a fantastic team and that's a dynamic that I'd love to see more often!

The plot, well the plot was a gigantic ball of twists and turns that we get to untangle little by little, where there are lies and traitors that you wouldn't expect and there is much more at stake that you'd expect at first. I really wasn't expecting what the big secret facility would be about and some of the revelations at the end of the book were really unexpected. And despite some resolution at the end of the book we also find out that there's so much to uncover if Renna, Finn & their crew want to really complete their mission.

One thing I really loved about the way this book ended was that despite it being a cliffhanger, it's the kind of tolerable cliffhanger. The one where characters are the ones making the choices and knowing what they'll be facing instead of having things thrown at them unexpectedly! It still leaves you wanting to see how things will go and what will happen, but you are not left emotionally crippled and twitching!

The Star Thief is a book with a complex plot, a strong female character and a swoony love interest, where you get more than just sparks between them and that will leave you wanting more. Well deserved 4.5 stars!

The Giveaway




http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/8a23bc1/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway



Sunday, September 22, 2013

Showcase Sunday #11!


Showcase Sunday is a weekly feature hosted by Vicky of Books, Biscuits, and Tea where all book lovers can share with others what bookish goodness we got this week, be it purchased (physical or eBook), won, gifted or for review!

Purchased (via Kindle app)



The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas



Alice In Deadland Trilogy by Mainak Dhar



Hunted by Jill Kaelin


Purchased (via The Book Depository)



The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater



The Wicked And The Just by J. Anderson Coats



Gold by Talia Vance



Antigoddess by Kendare Blake


Won (via Giveaway)

I was lucky enough to give this HC preorder from My Friends Are Fiction (Thank you Kristen!)


All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

And I have to thank Hafsah from Icey Books and author of this book for the chance to win an ARC for it via Twitter!





Unbreathable by Hafsah Laziaf


For Review (via NetGalley)



The Whatnot by Stefan Bachmann


Witchstruck by Victoria Lamb



For Review (via the author)



ParaWars: Uprising by Caitlin Greer




I was so happy this week when my UK paperback of The Dream Thieves arrived just one day after release day! The mail apparently is working a bit better the UK to Spain route! I also got some very cool ARCs for review, and the two books I got from NetGalley were like last minute approvals super close to release day, throwing my schedule for a loop!

What all did you guys get this week?