Waiting On Wednesday (12)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting on...

Title: Vessel
Author: Sarah Beth Durst

Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books (September 11, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1442423765
ISBN-13: 978-1442423763

In a desert land where serpents made of unbreakable glass fly through the sky and wolves made of only sand hunt within storms, Liyana is destined to be a vessel, to sacrifice herself so that her clan's goddess can inhabit her body... but her goddess never comes.

Title: Thief's Covenant
Author: Ari Marmell
Series: A Widdershins Adventure, #1

Hardcover: 273 pages
Publisher: Pyr (February 14, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1616145471
ISBN-13: 978-1616145477

Once she was Adrienne Satti. An orphan of Davillon, she had somehow escaped destitution and climbed to the ranks of the city's aristocracy in a rags-to-riches story straight from an ancient fairy tale. Until one horrid night, when a conspiracy of forces—human and other—stole it all away in a flurry of blood and murder.

Today she is Widdershins, a thief making her way through Davillon's underbelly with a sharp blade, a sharper wit, and the mystical aid of Olgun, a foreign god with no other worshippers but Widdershins herself. It's not a great life, certainly nothing compared to the one she once had, but it's hers.

But now, in the midst of Davillon's political turmoil, an array of hands are once again rising up against her, prepared to tear down all that she's built. The City Guard wants her in prison. Members of her own Guild want her dead. And something horrid, something dark, something ancient is reaching out for her, a past that refuses to let her go. Widdershins and Olgun are going to find answers, and justice, for what happened to her—but only if those who almost destroyed her in those years gone by don't finish the job first.

Both have such amazing covers and awesome synopsis!

LiLi

Teen Book Scene: Author of Here This or That List!

Introducing the author of Here, Denise Grover Swank...

Denise is a single mom who lives in Lee’s Summit, Missouri raising five of her six kids. (The oldest has gone off to live on his own.) She loves to embarrass her children whether it be spontaneous dance parties in the kitchen or making her teens’ friends think she’s funny/cool. *gasp* (Even if its in her own mind.) On rare occasions, she is known to post stories about her crazy life on her family blog There’s Always Room for One More.

She keeps her sanity by creating worlds to escape to and characters to hang out with.

Website I Facebook I Twitter

Onto the author This or That list...

Chocolate or Peanut butter?

Chocolate

Hot summer days or Cold winter nights?

Cold winter nights—better for snuggling

Hand- or Type-writing?

Type. My handwriting is nearly eligible and my fingers can’t keep up when I’m writing a first draft.

Twitter or Facebook?

Oh, hard one. It depends on my mood but lately I’m on Facebook more

Heating Blanket or Snuggie?

Heating blanket. My kids gave.

Most influential: School education or Life experience?

Life. Some things you just have to learn for yourself.

Blog or Journal?

Blog. I used to regularly post on my family blog, There’s Always Room for One More, until I began writing seriously two years ago. Now I have to drop in and clean out the cobwebs.

Road trip or Air plane?

Airplane. I’d rather get there faster and have someone else in charge of getting me to my destination.

Dogs or cats?

Dogs. I’m total dog person. I have two—a Yorkie named Fifi and a Maltese named Bella.

Ideal home: Big metropolitan house or Small rural cottage?

Rural cottage. As long as there’s a Starbucks close by. LOL

Sixteen year old Julia Phillips buries herself in guilt after killing her best friend Monica in a car accident. Julia awoke in the hospital with a broken leg, a new talent for drawing and false memories of the accident, in which she dies and Monica lives. The doctors attribute this to her head injury, but no one can explain how a bracelet engraved with her name ended up at the scene of the accident. A bracelet no one has ever seen before.

Classmate Evan Whittaker paid Julia no attention before the accident, let alone after. Now suddenly he’s volunteering to tutor her and offering to drive her home. She can’t ignore that his new obsession started after his two-day disappearance last week and that he wears a pendant she’s been drawing for months. When the police show up one night looking for Evan, he begs Julia to run with him, convincing her that Monica is still alive. Julia agrees to go, never guessing where he’s really from.

Website I Goodreads I Amazon

Thanks to Denise and Teen Book Scene!

LiLi

CtDfY's Not-To-Be-Missed Dance Video

For your viewing pleasure, a special dance video dedicated to Gail Sobat's Chance to Dance for You release...

Thank you, Gail, for letting me know about this amazing performance!

LiLi

Teen Book Scene: CtDfY Jess's This or That List!

Introducing the author of Chance to Dance for You, Gail Sidonie Sobat...

Gail Sidonie Sobat...is a witch at heart, a pirate in her dreams, and a gypsy in practice. She has assumed any number of disguises in her lifetime, including that of teacher, adjunct professor, woman-in-black, professional actor and singer, grounds keeper, flag girl, parimutuel seller and flower seller. She is the creator/ coordinator of YouthWrite, a camp for kids who love to write, a teacher at the University of Alberta Hospital School, an instructor in the University of Alberta Faculty of Education, and the Canadian Authors Association (Alberta Chapter) Writer-in-Residence. She has moved twenty-seven times in her life from Badlands to Siksika Nation Reserve to hideous suburbs to Istanbul to the Sunshine Coast to her writer’s garret in a near-century-old temperamental house.

Website I Facebook I Twitter

Onto Jess' This or That List...

Thick milkshake or fruit smoothie?

Fruit smoothie with protein power. I’m an athlete.

Hockey or Football?

Hockey. I’m Canadian, eh? It’s our national game.

NFL or CFL?

CFL!

Work out or Hang out?

Work out. Hanging out is boring. Might as well pump some weights. Work on maintaining the six pack.

Big city or Small town?

Big city. Easier to get lost in the crowd.

Date dessert: Ice cream or Donuts?

Dunno. Chicks like ice cream.

Pass-time: Small backyard football game or Going to the movies?

Football any time the snow’s not on the ground!

Hamburgers or Hot dogs?

Hamburgers. Hot dogs are full of toxic crap.

Text or E-mail?

What’s e-mail? Text!

CDs or iPod/MP3 player?

I don’t even have a CD player. iPod all the way!

Ian lives in a suburb where everything's the same. The houses are the same; the cars are the same; the families are the same; and their aspirations are the same. But Ian is different.

Openly gay in his bigoted high school, Ian doesn’t exactly fit in. But he's not worried— he's been training in dance for a long time and soon he'll be able to leave town and train to become a professional. Then he falls in love with Jess, the high school quarterback.

Website I Amazon I Goodreads

Thanks to Gail and Teen Book Scene!

LiLi

Teen Book Scene: Chance to Dance for You by Gail Sidonie Sobat

Title: Chance to Dance for You
Author: Gail Sidonie Sobat

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Great Plains Teen Fiction (May 1, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1926531116
ISBN-13: 978-1926531113

Ian lives in a suburb where everything's the same. The houses are the same; the cars are the same; the families are the same; and their aspirations are the same. But Ian is different.

Openly gay in his bigoted high school, Ian doesn’t exactly fit in. But he's not worried— he's been training in dance for a long time and soon he'll be able to leave town and train to become a professional. Then he falls in love with Jess, the high school quarterback.

Review:

Living in the Canadian suburbs has not stopped Ian from thinking of bigger and better things for his dancing career. Ever since he was a tot he hasn't done anything or thought about anything more all-consuming than his dancing. And although the teachers at his high school don't like to talk and rather stay away, they can't ignore the results that incorporating his dance techniques and flexibility exercises helps improve their athletes mobility. When a certain jock takes notice of Ian, it sparks a secret relationship between the two that the former would die to keep.

To start off, the predictability bar was set very high and did not disappoint. I knew what was going to happened before I even read the book. One thing I did not expect was for Chance to Dance for You to be crazy funny and satirical at times. Ian loved to make fun of the jocks, the burbs, his school in general and I loved reading all the names he came up with; they all had their own original twist on the names we hear everyday. I also appreciated the fact that Ian had a separate life that concentrated on his dancing when he started his relationship with Jess. That distraction definitely gave a spin to the book that was needed in order for the plot not become stagnant and solely focused on the secrecy between Ian and Jess.

Since Chance to Dance for You was such a short read, the only issues I had with it was the predictability and the ending. In a lot of ways, these two things coincide and it was the ending that I saw coming and did not enjoy reading at all. I know some may say different, that it's really the reality of homosexuality right now but the way and context in which this book was written set up such high hopes for the reader only to have them come crashing down in two seconds. However, I imagine that's how brief it would take to ruin someone's life, and I understand how the author wanted to illustrate that.

Grade: C

Source: Teen Book Scene

LiLi