Guest Post: Favorite books of all time by Tracy Clark of MIRAGE+GIVEAWAY

Hi everyone! Today we have Tracy Clark, author of The Light Key Trilogy, to share us a few of her favorite books of all time and how they get in the count. Also as a part of the book blog tour for her upcoming new YA book, we're all giving away 3 finished copy of MIRAGE to everyone! Also don't forget to check out other posts from the tour. So, without further ado I present Tracy Clark and her favorite books of all time...

A list of my favorite books of all time

Ask any author to make a list of favorite books and then sit back for the inevitable head-pop. It’s a hard question! We are lovers of words; lovers of stories, and words and stories take up too many forms and carry too many meanings to have absolute favorites. A book might become a favorite because it got me through heartbreak. I might latch onto a book for the inspiration it provided. Some books stay in my heart and head because they made me think. Others I love just because they made me feel. I’m certain I’ll regret this post as soon as I send it because I’ll realize I’ve forgotten a couple of crucial favorites. Ask me in a month, and I might even have additions. It’s an eclectic list, but tells a lot about me.

Here goes:

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – This book was recommended to me by a dear friend; the kind of cosmic friend who always recommends the perfect book when I need it. If you’ve ever heard the phrase “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear” then you get the idea. When the student is ready, the book will appear. The Alchemist is a universal story, a parable, about the quest for true happiness and fulfillment.  

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – This book is so incredibly inventive but has deep emotional heart as well. I sobbed the first time I read it. I sobbed the second time. I’ve read it multiple times and it never fails to move me. I’m impressed both as a reader and as a writer.

Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling – How can this series NOT be on everyone’s favorites list? I started writing YA when this series was about three books in. Her storytelling is vivid and thorough and amazing. The world is a better place because she shared her stories with us.

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz – In other interviews I’ve said that this book should be required reading for humans—ALL HUMANS. Are you a human? Then read it! I wish so badly I’d have had it as a teenager. It might have saved me so much grief! I’m guilty of forgetting to live by the agreements at times, but I consider them so wise and important that they are as holy as commandments.

Counting Kisses by Karen Katz – Reading this book to my kids when they were little is one of my most cherished memories. It combines counting, sleepy-time, affection, and sweet interactive kisses when you read it to a wee one. I give it as a gift to every single new parent I know.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou – This is the book that made me really want to be a writer. Maya Angelou’s writing can pluck you from your chair and put you right into her scenes. She shares her history, her truth, and her heart with unflinching candor. Reading this book began my love affair with the author and all of her works. One of the bright moments of my life was hearing her speak in person and reading “Phenomenal Woman” in that commanding, self-possessed, saucy way she had. I wish for the talent to write as powerfully.

Walt Disney’s Cinderella (1974) – The story goes that my mother went to my kindergarten parent/teacher conference and the teacher congratulated my mom on teaching me how to read. My mom said, “I thought YOU taught her!” The truth was that when I was four years old, I taught myself using this book and a follow along record that made a tinker-bell chime sound when it was time to turn the pages. Magic of reading!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky – Welcome to YA fiction that punches you in the heart with its moments of shattering truth. While reading this book, I had a few instants where I stopped and just stared, speechless and touched, pondering the absolute truth of a sentence.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson – The First YA I read as an adult that really made me see that teens need authors and stories that aren’t afraid to touch on awful realities. I knew when I read it that the reason I write for young adults is because I needed books like Speak when I was a teen and that teens now need to be respected enough to have authors write books that help them process some of the uglier truths of their lives. We don’t glorify the darkness by writing about it. We illuminate it.

MIRAGE

by Tracy Clark

Pub. Date: July 5, 2016

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers

Pages: 272

Format: Hardcover, eBook

Find it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Goodreads

Blurb:

Seventeen-year-old Ryan Poitier Sharpe is a gutsy, outgoing girl who spends her summer days hurling herself out of planes at her parents’ skydiving center in the Mojave Desert. Fiercely independent and willing to take risks, she challenges those around her to live life fully. But after a brush with death, Ryan is severely altered—she’s not the same thrill-seeking girl she once was and seems to be teetering on the edge of psychosis. As her relationships crumble and her life unravels, Ryan must fight the girl she’s become—or lose herself forever—in this eerie and atmospheric thriller.

    

 About the Author  

Tracy Clark is a young-adult writer because she believes teens deserve to know how much they matter and that regardless of what they’re going through, they aren’t alone. In other words, she writes books for her teen self.

She grew up a “Valley Girl” in Southern California but now lives in her home state of Nevada, in a small town at the base of the Sierra Foothills. Her two children teach her the art of distraction and are a continuous source of great dialogue.

Tracy was the recipient of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Work in Progress Grant. A two-time participant in the prestigious Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program. Tracy is a private pilot, an irredeemable dreamer, and a spicy-chocolate connoisseur.

Connect with Tracy on social media:

3 winners will receive a finished copy of MIRAGE, US Only.

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Tour Schedule:

Week One:

6/27/2016- The Oracle and The Muse- Interview

6/28/2016- Seeing Double In Neverland- Review

6/29/2016- Teen Readers' Diary- Guest Post

6/30/2016- Bookcrushin- Review

7/1/2016- The Cover Contessa- Interview

Week Two:

7/4/2016- A Dream Within A Dream- Review

7/5/2016- Ohana Reads- Guest Post

7/6/2016- Book-Keeping- Review

7/7/2016- Curling Up With A Good Book- Interview

7/8/2016- Here's to Happy Endings- Review

Book Blitz:WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER by Rae Carson+Giveaway

I am so excited that WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER by Rae Carson releases today and that I get to share the news, along with an awesome giveaway!

If you haven’t yet heard about this wonderful new series by Rae Carson, be sure to check out all the details below.

This blitz also includes a giveaway for a set of the GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS series (in paperback format). US only. So if you’d like a chance to win, enter in the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.

 

WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER

Author: Rae Carson

Pub. Date: September 22, 2015

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Pages: 448

Blurb:

The first book in a new trilogy from acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Rae Carson. A young woman with the magical ability to sense the presence of gold must flee her home, taking her on a sweeping and dangerous journey across Gold Rush–era America.

Lee Westfall has a secret. She can sense the presence of gold in the world around her. Veins deep beneath the earth, pebbles in the river, nuggets dug up from the forest floor. The buzz of gold means warmth and life and home—until everything is ripped away by a man who wants to control her. Left with nothing, Lee disguises herself as a boy and takes to the trail across the country. Gold was discovered in California, and where else could such a magical girl find herself, find safety? Rae Carson, author of the acclaimed Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy, dazzles with this new fantasy that subverts both our own history and familiar fantasy tropes.

Walk on Earth a Stranger, the first book in this new trilogy, introduces—as only Rae Carson can—a strong heroine, a perilous road, a fantastical twist, and a slow-burning romance. Includes a map and author’s note on historical research. 

Read chapter 1 of WALK ON EARTH A STRANGER annotated by Rae Carson HERE!

  

Rae Carson is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the acclaimed Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy. Her next book, Walk On Earth A Stranger, will be available September 22, 2015. She lives in Arizona with her husband.

Follow her on these sites

1 winner will receive a set of the 3 GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS series (in paperback format). US Only.

Ends on September 30th at Midnight EST!

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HARRIET WOLF'S SEVENTH BOOK OF WONDERS by Julianna Baggott + Giveaway

I am so excited that HARRIET WOLF'S SEVENTH BOOK OF WONDERS by Julianna Baggott released last Tuesday, August 18th, and that I get to share the news along with an exclusive excerpt!

If you haven’t yet heard about this wonderful book by Author Julianna Baggott, be sure to check out all the details below.

This blitz also includes a giveaway for 5 hardcovers of the book courtesy of Little Brown, and Rockstar Book Tours. So if you’d like a chance to win, enter in the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.

The Baby, Twice Born

Harriet

This is how the story goes: I was born dead—or so my mother was told.

According to the physician, good old Dr. Brumus, I didn’t cry. I wasn’t capable of even this innate reflex. I was mute and sallow and already a bleeder, one red bead poised at each nostril. Imagine my exhausted mother—the saint, Irish and Catholic—her legs sagging wide beneath the bloody sheet like two pale, bony wings.

The year was 1900. The world was taking a new shape: the Paris Exposition’s moving sidewalks, Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, and a tunnel being dug for the subway at Borough Hall, Manhattan. But in our house near the Chesapeake, not far from bustling Baltimore—with its canneries and foundries, its harbor of moaning steamboats, its tenements teeming with typhoid—there was little to do for either my mother or me, medically. Science had come only so far.

But given that Dr. Brumus—winded, permanently overwhelmed—had delivered three stillborn babies from my mother already, it seemed, for the moment, he’d finally won something. He was always watchful, however, always squinting as if in bright sun, even at dusk, the hour I was born, mosquitoes whining past an ear. And Brumus knew, what with my bleeding nose and my pallid, lightly furred skin, that something wasn’t right. He wrapped me in a blanket—though the summer hung wet and steaming outside. Like an aging football captain, he shuttled me down the stairs to the porch, where my father, the banker, was pacing. Dr. Brumus presented me to my father and gave the news: “It isn’t fit.” I wasn’t a girl yet. I was still dangling before my father, midair, a lost pronoun, and it would take years before I would become a child in any real form in my father’s eyes.

“No, it isn’t fit,” my father agreed, perhaps expecting as much, given the three lost before me.

“It may only live long enough for her to get attached,” Dr. Brumus said, teary now.

“The baby’s mother isn’t fit either,” my father said. “Mary has those dark moods. You’ve seen them. She couldn’t withstand that kind of attachment and loss.”

Dr. Brumus tried to hand me to my father, whose face was poised above mine, his nose fat and squat, a boxy fender, though he was youngish and handsome in his taut pink skin and glossy hair. He didn’t like what he saw. “Take it with you,” he said.

Dr. Brumus oversaw the Maryland School for Feeble Minded Children in Owings Mills, long before Baltimore started spilling into it with such ferocity. My father was betting that I wouldn’t make it—but what if I did? Was he asking Dr. Brumus to be my father, or at least my warden? The two men had known each other since they were boys.

“Jackie,” Dr. Brumus said, using the pet name normally reserved for times when he’d drunk a Scotch and soda and was looking slack and heavy-lidded. But that wasn’t his mood now. His eyes raced. “I can’t take the baby with me—”

“You said it’s going to die. You said so!” And my father became a little boy, his face plump and sweaty.

“Where’s the baby?” my mother called, her voice carrying from the open bedroom window above, her Irish accent heavier because she was too tired to fight it. She could have been calling to them from reeds, a marsh with a fog rolling in.

My father shook his head. “No,” he whispered to the doctor, fiercely.

And then my father marched upstairs, past the water stains on the wallpaper and into the bedroom.

“No,” he said to his wife in a lilting voice of his own. Was he going to sing to her? “Darling, no.”

And so, for my mother, I was dead.

But still there was a baby. And this other baby with its dim pulse was bundled and taken away to start its other life at the Maryland School for Feeble Minded Children.

In just over a decade’s time, this child would become a supposed Girl Genius, and, more important, she would find Eppitt in the laundry and love him too much. (You don’t know Eppitt yet, dear ones, but you will.) And then this same child would make her way back here again—to this very porch, to her mother’s bed.

Some of us are born dead, some never really born at all, and others are born fresh every day—as if they’ve had new eyes stitched on overnight—which is the best way to live.

I hope you will understand eventually why I’ve denied all of this for so long. Are you reading this, my Eleanor? My Ruthie? My dear Tilton? Are your eyes catching on these words, fastening one to the next, aware of my life collecting on the page? Are you here with me?

I still desire the veil of fiction, the means to monkey and fidget with the details so I can convince myself that I’m writing about another baby, another mother, another life. If not that, then I wish it were lovely. But what did I learn in writing out the lives of my characters Weldon and Daisy? You can’t have love without knowing sorrow; you can’t have miracles without desperation.

Here, then. My desperation.

Excerpted from Harriet Wolf’s Seventh Book of Wonders by Julianna Baggott. Copyright © 2015 by Julianna Baggott. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY. All rights reserved

Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders
by Julianna Baggott

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Release Date: August 18th 2015
Find it: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Goodreads

Blurb:

A brilliantly crafted saga about three generations of women and their secrets, including the discovery of a final unpublished book by the family matriarch, a revered and reclusive author.

Harriet Wolf has a final confession. It can be found only in the final book of the series that made her a famous writer. But does that book exist?

This absorbing novel spans the entire twentieth century, telling the moving story of a mother, her daughter, and two granddaughters, one of whom is the only person alive who knows the whereabouts of Harriet's final book. When a hospitalization brings the family back together, the mystery not only of Harriet's last book, but also of her life, hangs in the balance. Will the truth ever be known, or is Harriet's story gone forever?

A multi-generational tale of long-lost love, motherhood, and family secrets, this is Baggott's most sweeping and mesmerizing novel yet.

  

About the Author 

Critically acclaimed, bestselling author, Julianna Baggott -- who also writes under the pen names Bridget Asher (The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted) and N.E. Bode (The Anybodies) -- has published 17 books, including novels for adults, younger readers, and collections of poetry. Her latest novel, PURE, is the first of a trilogy; film rights have sold to Fox2000 -- www.pure-book.com.

Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Best American Poetry, Best Creative Nonfiction, Real Simple, on NPR.org, as well as read on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" and "Here and Now." Her novels have been book-pick selections by People Magazine's summer reading, Washington Post book-of-the-week, a Booksense selection, a Boston Herald Book Club selection, and a Kirkus Best Books of the Year list. Her novels have been published in over 50 overseas editions. She's a professor in the Creative Writing Program at Florida State University and the founder of the nonprofit Kids in Need - Books in Deed. For more, visit www.juliannabaggott.com.

Follow her on these sites
   

5 finished copies of HARRIET WOLF'S SEVENTH BOOK OF WONDERS. US Only.

Ends on August 24th at Midnight EST!

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Blog Tour:YOU AND ME AND HIM by Kris Dinnison (Author Interview)

Hiya everyone!  It's been a rainy week here in the Philippines and what's the best way to do when you're lock up at your house? Well, of course reading and a cup of coffee! I am starting to read the Psy-changeling series by Nalini Singh and guys it was so good and SEXAAY *wink* though I am reading I still multitask and search for my next read and one of the books that caught my attention is You and Me and Him by Kris Dinnison. I got lucky to be a part of the blog tour for the book and had a chance to interview Kris, read the author interview below and join the giveaway guys!

Congratulations on your book! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Thanks! I used to be a teacher and librarian, but I always wanted to be a writer. I love books and stories almost as much as my family. I have a husband, a daughter, a geriatric cat named Moonie, and I just got a new kitten named Raymond. I love raspberries. I hate licorice. My favorite color is green. I speak French, but poorly.

What can readers expect from YOU and ME and HIM?

Well, I think they can expect a story of friendship, and what happens when we screw up a friendship over something less important. The tagline of the book “What if getting the guy means losing your soulmate?’ really brings that home. A soulmate is somebody, not necessarily a romantic somebody, who gets you at the most basic level. In the story, Maggie risks losing that person, her friend Nash, over a guy they’re both interested in. Readers can also expect some humor, some great music, and some good fights.

If you don't mind, would you like to share with us the one event that turned your world upside down?

There have been a lot of significant moments in my life of course. A lot of them joyful, thankfully only a few of them sad. One that really changed my life and my understanding of myself was moving from Eastern Washington to The Bay Area when I was 16. I was halfway through my junior year in High School, and the culture shock was stunning. Plus I was moving from the people I’d gone to school with since third grade. They would all graduate together and I would be alone. I was not happy, and I was not optimistic. But I did my best to get involved and meet people and it wasn’t so bad. In fact I was actually grateful afterward that I’d had that experience. It taught me to be more independent and more confident about who I was, especially in new situations. It felt huge at the time, and in retrospect it was, but not in a bad way.

When and how did you decide to become a YA writer?

I don’t know if I actually decided as much as fell into it. I’ve read YA for awhile because I was a High School teacher and a school librarian and because there are just some amazing YA  books out there. Anyway, when I left teaching, I wanted to write, and I tried a few things, but nothing felt quite right. And I was scared because I didn’t really know what I was doing. Then I read a piece of writing advice from Neil Gaiman. He said “Finish something.” So I decided I would write a complete first draft of this novel about a girl who works in a record store. That became You and Me and Him. It was still really rough when my agent saw it at a conference. I wasn’t really looking for an agent yet. I thought I was a long way from that. But she loved it and was willing to help me get it into shape and try to sell it. It took awhile, but when it did sell, it was to an amazing editor, the perfect editor for this book.  Now I realize that the book worked because I have a lot to say, and maybe a lot of my own stuff to work out, about that moment between childhood and full adulthood. So I’m excited to write more stories about that time in life.

Could you describe the mundane details of writing: How many hours a day to you devote to writing? Do you write a draft on paper or at a keyboard?

This is always a shifting landscape for me because we own two retail businesses, Atticus Coffee and Boo Radley’s Gifts, so I have been working there while trying to write and fit in all the other stuff life throws at you. But recently I’m working at our stores less often, so my writing days have a more predictable structure. I write in the morning, usually for anywhere from three to five hours depending on how much other stuff I have to do that day. I have a writing room that I use, but if I’m doing research or need the internet I have to work somewhere else because the internet is terrible in that room. I take a lot of notes in a writing notebook, but I draft on a keyboard.

So far, what has been the most surprising part of the publishing and writing industry for you?

I think the most wonderful surprise has been what an incredibly supportive community the YA writing and publishing community is. I feel so supported by other writers, and other agents and editors have also been really kind and helpful to me. And of course there are all the amazing book bloggers who love YA as much as I do. It’s great to see how everyone is a fan of everyone else. And every time I’ve reached out with a question or needed help with something, someone comes through. It’s been amazing.

We here at Teen Readers' Diary are huge YA Contemporary readers. What sets this story apart from the other books in the genre?

There are two things that set the book apart in my mind. The first is the unconventional love triangle. The two best friends who like the same guy isn’t new. The fact that one of those best friends is a gay guy gives it an unusual twist. The other thing is that Maggie, my main character, is overweight. But she doesn’t spend the book trying to change that. It causes her some problems, and she sometimes wishes she was thinner, but the book is about her discovering that she’s more than just her weight, that she has a lot to offer no matter what size she is.

What is the best piece of advice you've ever received? the worst?

The best piece of advice I ever received was that quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Whatever relationship I’m in, whether in my family, or with friends, or a work relationship, or even now with relationships in publishing, I try to remember that if I’m feeling bad about myself, or feeling less than, that’s about me, not about that other person. And I’m the only one who can change it.

The worst piece of advice I ever got was probably from a teacher’s assistant who told me I was a decent writer but I didn’t really have any original ideas, so maybe I shouldn’t try to write stories. I was in second grade. I wasted thirty years because I took that advice. That was thirty years I could have been writing stories. Now I know it’s rubbish.

Are you working on something right now?

Of course! I’m working on the first draft of another novel, and I have one done that still needs some revision. And I have another one I’m dying to start. When you stuff your creativity in a dark hole for too long, it comes gushing out. All I want to do is write these days!

YOU AND ME AND HIM

Author: Kris Dinnison

Pub. Date: July 7, 2015

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers

Pages: 288

Formats: Hardcover, eBook

Blurb:

“Do not ignore a call from me when you know I am feeling neurotic about a boy. That is Best Friend 101.” —Nash

Maggie and Nash are outsiders. 

She’s overweight. 

He’s out of the closet. 

The best of friends, they have seen each other through thick and thin, but when Tom moves to town at the start of the school year, they have something unexpected in common: feelings for the same guy. This warm, witty novel—with a clear, true voice and a clever soundtrack of musical references—sings a song of love and forgiveness.

  

Kris Dinnison learned to read when she was five years old. She grew up reading books nobody else had read and listening to music nobody else had heard of and thinking she was weird, which she kind of was. She spent nearly two decades as a teacher and librarian working with students from kindergarten to graduate school. The bulk of that time she spent teaching High School English while dreaming of becoming a writer. Nowadays, when she’s not writing, she helps run her family’s retail and café businesses.  She lives and writes in Spokane, Washington.

Where you can fine Kris:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Tumblr | Instagram | Goodreads

3 winners will receive a finished copy of YOU AND ME AND HIM. US Only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

6/29/2015- Paperback Princess- Interview

6/30/2015- StuckInBooks- Review

7/1/2015- Novel Novice- Guest Post

7/2/2015- Book Briefs- Review

7/3/2015- Fictitious Delicious- Interview

Week Two:

7/6/2015- YA Book Madness- Review

7/7/2015- Me, My Shelf and I- Guest Post

7/8/2015- Swoony Boys Podcast- Review

7/9/2015- Teen Readers' Diary- Interview

7/10/2015- Downright Dystopian- Review