Tuesday, December 18, 2012

(Blog Tour) The Scourge by A.G. Henley Review & Giveaway!




Release date: January 31st, 2012
Kindle Edition
Blurb: Seventeen-year-old Groundling, Fennel, is Sightless. She's never been able to see her lush forest home, but she knows its secrets. She knows how the shadows shift when she passes under a canopy of trees. She knows how to hide in the cool, damp caves when the Scourge comes. She knows how devious and arrogant the Groundlings' tree-dwelling neighbors, the Lofties, can be. 

 And she's always known this day would come—the day she faces the Scourge alone. 

The Sightless, like Fenn, are mysteriously protected from the Scourge, the gruesome creatures roaming the forests, reeking of festering flesh and consuming anything—and anyone—living. A Sightless Groundling must brave the Scourge and bring fresh water to the people of the forest. Today, that task becomes Fenn's. 

Fenn will have a Lofty Keeper, Peree, as her companion. Everyone knows the Lofties wouldn’t hesitate to shoot an arrow through the back of an unsuspecting Groundling like Fenn, but Peree seems different. A boy with warm, rough hands who smells like summer, he is surprisingly kind and thoughtful. Although Fenn knows his people are treacherous, she finds herself wanting to trust him. 

As their forest community teeters on the brink of war, Fenn and Peree must learn to work together to survive the Scourge and ensure their people’s survival. But when Fenn uncovers a secret that shatters her truths, she’s forced to decide who and what to protect—her people, her growing love for Peree, or the elusive dream of lasting peace in the forest.

      Review:

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, The Scourge is a story about a sightless seventeen-year old girl named Fennel. Fennel belongs in a community called Groundlings and has a very important role: to bring water to her people in the caves and to the Lofties, the tree-dwelling people, every time the Scourge encroach their forest homes. Her sightlessness gives her the ability to walk with the Scourge freely. Fennel is not alone with this great responsibility as a Lofty Keeper named Peree looks after her. 

Meanwhile the Scourge seems to be in no hurry and the Groundlings has to stay longer in the cave as a repercussion. With dwindling supplies and rationed water, Fennel has to set out on a journey to find the legendary Hidden Waters – which is said to be safe from the Scourge. Together with Peree, Fennel is about to discover the truth that will challenge everything she used to believe. 

What an amazing world written by AG Henley! She breathes life into a story that is fresh while fitting in things that I love in post-apocalyptic YA. People who have read this go on and on about how beautifully written The Scourge is and I’m glad to be one of those who can attest to it. Her imagination made for some interesting and vivid descriptions on Fennel’s surroundings and the flesh-eating Scourge. 

I had never before encountered a blind heroine in YA. It is a pleasant change which I easily welcomed and got used to. Being in the shoes of Fennel is equally a refreshing and exciting experience. The romance was sweet and simmers slowly but surely. It is just the ending that I felt was a little too rushed. However, that doesn’t lessen my anticipation for book two.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. The Scourge entails a plot-driven story that I’m sure YA Dystopia fans will revel in!
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Buy it on: Amazon || Barnes and Noble || Smashwords


Author Bio

A.G. Henley is the author of the young adult novel, THE SCOURGE. She is also a clinical psychologist, which means people either tell her their life stories on airplanes, or avoid her at parties when they’ve had too much to drink. Neither of which she minds. When she’s not writing fiction or shrinking heads, she can be found herding her children and their scruffy dog, Guapo, to various activities while trying to remember whatever she’s inevitably forgotten to tell her husband. She lives in Denver, Colorado. Learn more at www.aghenley.com
Follow her on these sites: Website││Twitter|| Facebook|| Goodreads

Giveaway
30 daily winners will win an e-copy of The Scourge! Open Int'l

FANG GIRL: Interview+Giveaway(INT)







Fang Girl by Helen Keeble

Paperback: 464
Release date: September 11, 2012
Publisher: Harper Teen
Goodreads Rating: 3.73
Goodreads Summary: Things That Are Destroying Jane Greene’s Undead Social Life Before It Can Even Begin:

1) A twelve-year-old brother who’s convinced she’s a zombie.
2) Parents who are begging her to turn them into vampires.
3) The pet goldfish she accidentally turns instead.
4) Weird superpowers that let her rip the heads off of every other vampire she meets.(Sounds cool, but it doesn’t win you many friends.)
5) A pyschotic vampire creator who’s using her to carry out a plan for world domination.

And finally:
6) A seriously ripped vampire hunter who either wants to stake her or make out with her. Not sure which.

Being an undead, eternally pasty fifteen-year-old isn’t quite the sexy, brooding, angst-fest Jane always imagined....

Helen Keeble’s riotous debut novel combines the humor of Vladimir Tod with Ally Carter’s spot-on teen voice. With a one-of-a-kind vampire mythology and an irresistibly relatable undead heroine, this uproarious page-turner will leave readers bloodthirsty for more.

Buy Now



"Helen Keeble Interview 1"

What would you do if you woke up in a coffin and discovered you were a vampire?

Um, probably panic and cry in a very undignified fashion. I’m much less tough and resourceful than FANG GIRL’s Jane! But once I’d got a grip on myself, I’d do the same thing that Jane does – phone my family. Who wants to be a solitary creature of the night when you can go back home where there’s bed, broadband, and people who love you?


Do you work with an outline, or just write and go with the flow?

When I first started writing FANG GIRL, I was definitely just going with the flow. The first draft was actually written in just thirty days, as part of NaNoWriMo 2008 (National Novel Writing Month – a yearly challenge where people try to write a whole novel in a month). But given that it took me at least five drafts and an entire year to turn that rough manuscript into something coherent (let alone publishable), I’m now a firm convert to outlining.

Plus, of course, these days I have to outline, because my editor wants to know what I’m going to write before I write it, so she can decide whether or not to buy it! So my second book, NO ANGEL, had a fairly detailed outline… not that I stuck to it.


Which came first – the story or the characters? 

I always get a couple of characters first (in this case, Jane and her family), and then have to figure out what story to tell with them. Then it’s an iterative development – I create new characters to meet the demands of that story, but those characters in turn alter the shape of the story so I have to change that, which may mean I have to tweak the characters again… and round it goes!


If you could go to lunch with any author, who would you pick?

I can only have one? Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, which I have probably read more than any other book in my life. I, uh, may also have watched the animated film version every single week between the ages of six and eight.

If I could have lunch with more than one, then I’d want Peter S. Beagle, Steph Swainston, China Mieville, Dan Abnett, Sarah Rees Brennan, Terry Pratchett, Ursula Le Guin, Jacqueline Carey, and Cassandra Claire. Now that would be a literary party to remember!


Is there anything about you that would surprise your readers?

I may be a writer by night, but in the day I’m a professional engineer, developing software for industrial controllers. The cool (and terrifying) way of saying this is: “I design stuff that controls nuclear power plants!” The more accurate way of describing it is “I sit in a lot of meetings where people argue about tiny details in C++ code.” But either way, it’s an awesome job!


Can you give us any hints about book 2?

My next book (out in Fall 2013) is not actually a sequel to FANG GIRL – it’s another YA paranormal comedy with the same style of humour, but it’s not about vampires. It’s called NO ANGEL, so you can probably guess what romantic subgenre I’m poking fun at this time…

I’m working on a sequel to FANG GIRL at the moment, though can’t yet say when (or if) it’ll be released – whether or not my publisher, HarperTeen, decide to buy it will depend on how well FANG GIRL does! But I can tell you that the working title is THANK DOG, and in it Jane meets the inevitable hot shirtless werewolf… who is not quite what she’s expecting.





Author Bio:



Helen Keeble is not, and never has been, a vampire. She has however been a teenager. She grew up partly in America and partly in England, which has left her with an unidentifiable accent and a fondness for peanut butter crackers washed   down with a nice cup of tea. She now lives in West Sussex, England, with her husband, daughter, two cats, and a variable number of fish. To the best of her knowledge, none of the fish are undead.

Her first novel, a YA vampire comedy called FANG GIRL, is out 11th Sept 2012, from HarperTeen. 

She also has another YA paranormal comedy novel (provisionally titled NO ANGEL) scheduled for Sept 2013.

GIVEAWAY TIME!!










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