Hot off the Press!

Hey guys! Here are some new stuff that came out this week:

The book trailer for Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins (release date: May 1st)

  
Can't wait for this one! What did you guys think about the trailer?

But also the book trailer for Kiera Cass' The Selection (release date: April 24th)

 April 24th can't come soon enough!

Have you guys heard about J.K. Rowling's new adult novel?

The Casual Vacancy

When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils...Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?
Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.
 
The book will be published worldwide in the English language in hardback, ebook, unabridged audio download and on CD on Thursday 27th September 2012. (http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/TheCasualVacancy)


Amy Plum, author of the Die For Me trilogy, has just announced two more books coming out 2014 and 2015!

Here is the official announcement from yesterday’s “New Deals” section of Publisher’s Marketplace:

Author of the DIE FOR ME trilogy, Amy Plum’s JUNEAU, about a seventeen-year-old girl who has been raised to believe that her family, and the rest of their village, escaped World War III by moving to a remote area in the Alaskan wilderness – but when everyone in her village mysteriously disappears, she’s forced to set off in search of them, only to discover that her life has been a lie and there never was a third World War,

to Tara Weikum at Harper Children’s, in a good deal, for two books, for publication in Summer 2014 and Summer 2015, by Stacey Glick at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (world English).

Sounds great, right? Go here to show Amy some love for the new books announcement!

 And last but not least: Read the first two chapters from The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater! I, for one, can't wait for this novel!!! (Goodreads)
'Ravenboys' by Maggie Stiefvater - Chapter tease

 
 
Which piece of news did you guys loved the most? :)

Author Interview - Sarah Cross!

About:

Sarah Cross is the author of the fairy tale novel Kill Me Softly, the superhero novel Dull Boy, and the Wolverine comic "The Adamantium Diaries." She loves fairy tales, lowbrow art, secret identities, and silence.
If you want to know more about her, read one of her books. Her soul is in there somewhere.
Current art inspirations & obsessions can be found at tumblr, Fairy Tale Mood, or pinterest.

Favorites:

• Animals: Pallas' cats, hawks
• Fairy Tale: Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier"
• Disney movie: Sleeping Beauty
• Fairy Tale Retelling: Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber
• Movie: The Petrified Forest
• Book: The Tale of Genji
• Comics: early Spider-Man, golden age Batman (1940s), X-Men (Dark Phoenix Saga), Runaways, Castle Waiting
• Manga: Paradise Kiss, 20th Century Boys
• Videogames: Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Final Fantasy IV, Bioshock series, GTA
• TV Shows: Breaking Bad, Southland, Mad Men, The Shield, My Princess
• Music: Fiona Apple, Florence + the Machine, K-Pop

                                                Website
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My interview with Sarah:

Hello Sarah! Thank you so much for stopping by Books to Consider. To begin how about you tell us a bit about yourself?

The hardest question of all! I'm the author of the YA books Kill Me Softly (modern fairy tales) and Dull Boy (superheroes), and my comic "The Adamantium Diaries" appeared in Marvel Comics' Wolverine #1000. I love art, animals & old movies and I curate a fairy tale tumblr called "Fairy Tale Mood." Oh, and I really like (American) football.

How did you come up with the idea for Kill Me Softly?

I'd wanted to write a fairy tale retelling for a long time, and there was one fairy tale in particular that I wanted to retell. As I started to flesh out that story, I realized there was another fairy tale that would fit perfectly with the first one. And then I figured, if I was going to use two fairy tales, why not find a way to use them all? I'm being really vague, I know! I have to, for spoiler reasons. ;)

After reading Kill Me Softly I would say that you really like fairy tales and that you certainly know a lot about them. Why do fairy tales interest you?

I love fun, magical, sparkly things and I also love dark, dangerous, disturbing things, and with fairy tales, you get to have both. Also, some fairy tales are so insane, you spend the entire time you're reading them going "what ... WHAT ... WHAT??" and I love that aspect, too. Like Madame d'Aulnoy's "The White Cat." Fairy tales mean so many different things to different people ... there's a lot to play with, and a lot to explore.

What is your favorite fairy tale?

My favorite fairy tale is Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier." The characters are toys and yet, it's so sad! The first time I heard it (yes, heard it) was when a college professor played the audio version (read by Jeremy Irons) during a writing workshop, and I was so moved by it that I started crying in class. I'm sure everyone thought there was something wrong with me, but that story earned those tears. :)

Any future projects or something you are working on right now (maybe a sequel to Kill Me Softly - I'm begging you!)

Haha! Well, not a direct sequel ... I'm working on a companion novel about some of the other characters from Kill Me Softly. No word on whether it will be published yet, but I certainly hope to write more books set in Beau Rivage. And there will be some fairy-tale stories on my website, starting with "After the Ball," which is up now, and features beautiful illustrations by young artist Oona Pohjolainen: http://www.sarahcross.com/stories/

What are your plans for the release day?

As I write this, my release day was yesterday (yay!) and I spent the day going to bookstores to sign stock, then capped it off with dinner and a delicious vanilla/apple pie/bacon milkshake
.

Since my blog is called Books to Consider, which book should we consider reading next?

Ooh, good question ... well, if you like fairy tale retellings and haven't tried Holly Black's Curse Workers series (starting with White Cat), you should definitely consider reading that! And if you like contemporaries that don't pull any punches, I highly recommend The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Perez. You can't go wrong with either of those.
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And because I really loved this novel, I'm giving one of you the chance of winning Kill Me Softly :)


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Illuminate - Aimee Agresti

 

Release Date: March 6th, 2012
Hardcover: 514 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 

Haven Terra is a brainy, shy high school outcast. But everything begins to change when she turns sixteen. Along with her best friend Dante and their quiet and brilliant classmate Lance, she is awarded a prestigious internship in the big city— Chicago—and is sent to live and work at a swanky and stylish hotel under the watchful eyes of a group of gorgeous and shockingly young-looking strangers: powerful and alluring hotel owner Aurelia Brown; her second-in-command, the dashing Lucian Grove; and their stunning but aloof staff of glamazons called The Outfit. 
As Haven begins falling for Lucian, she discovers that these beautiful people are not quite what they seem. With the help of a mysterious book, she uncovers a network of secret passageways from the hotel’s jazz-age past that leads her to the heart of the evil agenda of Aurelia and company: they’re in the business of buying souls. Will they succeed in wooing Haven to join them in their recruitment efforts, or will she be able to thwart this devilish set’s plans to take the souls of her classmates on prom night at the hotel?             (Summary taken from Goodreads)


To describe Illuminate I could only use two words: freaking amazing! And to be completely sincere, I wasn't expecting for it to be this good. Angel-themed books have been so popular these last few months that I though Illuminate would be rather repetitive but it was just the opposite! Agresti's novel was a pleasant surprise. And I can't forget to mention that Illuminate has a beautiful cover which will love great on your bookshelf, just saying.

Haven, an ordinary yet very hard-working girl, is chosen to work at a hotel for six months. Her best friend, Dante, and another high school colleague, Lance, are invited too. This job seems like the perfect opportunity to get her life somewhere. But she doesn't know that in this hotel nothing is as it seems. A book left for her in the library tells her that her life is in great danger but will she believe it?

The plot was utterly amazing and surprisingly captivating. It was actually really surprising to find out more about the hotel's beautiful employees and the scaring boss, Aurelia. I had no idea when I started this novel that it would not only involve angels, but also selling souls to demons (if you watch Supernatural, you know what this means!). It was refreshing; for as I said many times before, angels are a popular theme nowadays in YA books. But what I loved most was the mystery in Illuminate. Agresti succeeds in keeping us at bay the whole time, leaving us guessing and never finding out much, though I guess this could be a bit annoying to many of you but I enjoyed it.

The characters in Illuminate were a bit hard to judge and relate to, since they were for the most part mysterious. For example you never knew if Lucian (the gorgeous employee, with whom Haven has a few dates) was nice or if he was just playing Haven for his and Aurelia's evil plans (mua-ha-ha! You will have to read it to find out more!). But Haven was a wonderful main character. She grows up a lot throughout the book, becoming a strong and independent girl. She is really down-to-earth and prefers to work hard now and slack later. Lance was sweet, quiet and likable but I would have loved to learn more about him. I wanted to read more about Dante too, even though he was a pretty predictable character.

Overall the story was amazing, the writing beautiful so that I can't wait to read the next one (my hands are already itching for more)! The beginning started a bit slow and sometimes I wondered about taking a break from reading it, but I refused to give up and it totally paid off! I'm so happy that I continued reading because after the action started to pick up pace I wasn't able to put this one down. Totally recommended!

Aimee Agresti was voted “Quietest” of her high school class–probably because she spent too much time with her nose buried in books. Clearly, becoming a writer was the only possible choice. She now happily toggles between the realms of fact and fiction. The author of the young adult novel ILLUMINATE, she’s also a former Us Weekly staff writer and entertainment journalist. She graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism and lives with her husband and son in Washington, DC, where she can often be found skulking around the Smithsonian museums on slow writing days waiting for inspiration to strike. For more on Aimee: Website / Twitter