Marlene Perez Interview

Marlene Perez is the YA author of the DEAD IS series as well as Love in the corner pocket & The comeback. She has just released the fourth book in her series Dead is just a Rumor & has planned on releasing Dead is not an Option Summer 2011. Exciting!

CT: Can you give us a brief description of the ‘Dead Is’ series in your own words?

MP: The DEAD IS series is a teen paranormal mystery series set in the town of Nightshade, California and features the adventures of Daisy Giordano and her sisters, as well as a cast of normal and paranormal characters. The things that go bump in the night are your neighbors in Nightshade.

CT: What has been your inspiration to write the ‘Dead Is’ series and the title?
MP: I love urban fantasy, paranormal, and especially anything with vampires in it. When I was little, my older sister used to babysit me after school and she watched a supernatural soap opera called DARK SHADOWS. I also loved Anne Rice’s VAMPIRE LESTAT books and read every ghost story I could find as a kid. I also had a crush on a character from a book when I was growing up, Strider/Aragorn from LORD OF THE RINGS. When I saw Viggo Mortenson’s film portrayal, I sincerely thought he brought the character to life. He was exactly how I’d pictured him.

CT: Who is your favorite character from Nightshade?
MP: Daisy. I adore her. But I’m kind of fond of Ryan, too.
CT:What are some of your favorite books to read?
MP: I read pretty much every genre and if people are really interested, check out my goodreads list. It’s embarrassingly long, but will tell you what I’m reading. I’ve been reading a lot of research books lately.
CT:When you’re not busy writing, what do you like to do in your free time?
MP: I like to spend time with my family, go to the beach, read, and have coffee with my writing buddies.
CT: What advice would you give to Young Adults who desire to become authors themselves?
MP: Read widely and hone your craft.

CT: Anything else you would like to add….
MP: I love to hear from my readers! There’s a Welcome to Nightshade Facebook Community page and I’d love to see readers there!

CT: Thank you very much Marlene!

Links to Marlene:

http://members.cox.net/mardperez/
 And also look for NightShade on Facebook!!

Follow Friday (2)

 This is my second week participating in the Follow Friday meme hosted by Parajunkee's View To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1.) Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Host { Parajunkee.com } and any one else you want to follow on the list

2.) Follow our Featured Bloggers - seducedbybooks.blogspot.com

3.) Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing.

4.) Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments

5.) Follow Follow Follow as many as you can

6.) If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers

7.) If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!

8.) If your new to the follow friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

Review: Intertwined

Pages 377

Harlequin

Gena Showalter

Sequel: Unraveled

There's something about the new guy at Crossroads High...

Most sixteen-year-olds have friends.

Aden Stone has four human souls living inside him:

One can time travel

One can raise the dead

One can possess another human

One can tell the future

Everyone thinks he's crazy, which is why he's spent his entire life shuffled between mental institutions and juvie. All of that is about to change, however. For months Aden has been having visions of a beautiful girl- a girl who carries centuries-old secrets. A girl who will either save him or destroy him.

Together they'll enter a dark world of intrigue and danger... but not everyone will come out alive.

Review: ( SOME SPOILERS! BEWARE)

I am not sure where to begin with this review, since the ending is fresh in my mind I have to reference back to the middle and begining to write a more efficient review.

The plot of this book has a nice lead. The first chapter is action, action and some more action- Aden Stone is different from any character I have ever read about, along with the four souls living in his head, you are introduced to all right away.

The chapters switch off from different view points of Aden and Mary Ann, I enjoy when authors do that offering a different variety in the story telling. As the story unfolds you really start to think you can predict that since Aden and Mary Ann have this draw to eachother that they will end up together and so goes the typical plot... not even close to what the plot leads up to.

Aden knows Mary Ann is not the girl in his visions but he is determined that she can help him- with the souls in his head and even lead him to the girl. He is right- soon Victoria- the girl in Aden's visions via Elijiah (the soul in his head that has the visions) enters the scene and Surprise she is a vampire.

At the same time Mary Ann has an admirer as well- a werewolf- a shape shifter- I really enjoyed this part of the story because you have no idea who the wolf is and the author leaves uncertain possibilities..

(I will not spoil that part!)

To continue- the part that annoyed me was everytime Aden needed to sneak away from home or school- Victoria 'would handle it' convincing teachers and students et cetera that Aden had been there all along when he was not... which is a cool ability but it just happend too much.

There wasnt much of a description of the connection between Victoria and Aden- they both just knew they wanted one another, I just didn't feel the romance between the two it was more like an unexplained crush- same goes for Mary Ann and her mysterious Wolf...there was romance just a mild amount.

There is lots of paranormal and some neat connections between everyone- hence the great title 'Intertwined'

That was definatley my favorite part of the plot that there really wasn't one climax but several as the connection bewteen everyone started to unravel (lol! the name of the sequel is suiting!)

There are alot of surpirses and a good ending that is not definite and leaves plenty of action for the next book-

I would rate this book a 4- I really liked it and definatley want to read the next book, so it is worth the read!

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading and it asks us to...


1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a random page
3. Share a couple of “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title and author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teaser (click on the title)

Bad boy. Yes, that fit, too. Mary Ann didn't have to turn to remind herself of what he looked like. His image was burned into her mind. As Penny had said, he had black hair with inch long blond roots. What she hadn't mentioned was that his face was as perfect as the Grecian statues she'd seen in her world history book, even with the grime. For the briefest of moments, when a beam of sunlight had hit him, Mary Ann would have sworn his eyes were striped with green, brown, blue and gold. But then the ray had disappeared beyind a fluff of clouds and the colors had melted into eachother, leaving only an intense black.

- Intertwined by Gena Showalter pg. 30

 

Cherry on Top AWARD!

YAY! I recieved this award from Ginger over at GReads!

Thank you Ginger!

All you have to do for the Cherry on Top award is:

1) Answer the question "If I had the chance to go back and change one thing in my life, would I, and what would it be?"
2) Pick up to 6 people and give them this award.
3) Thank the person who gave you the award.

My answer is....

If I had the chance to go back and change one thing in my life, honeslty, I would change the college I chose to attend three years ago- I didn't know much about tuition prices, financial aid, accredited shcools, and their programs- I called the first school that came to my attention and have been paying waaaay too much for the past three years. I can't say that I wasted my time, I learned alot through their Health Information program, but it was more expensive than necessary and I'm not sure Health Information is what I want for a career.
So back the drawing board- going to fins another program where I can expand my horizons :)

And here are 6 bloggers worthy of this award-

1.WORD for Teens
2.The Book Pixie
3.Reading Addict
4.Must Love Books
5.Musings of a Reader Happy
6.Michelle & Leslie's Book picks

Read-a-thon challenge... & TBR pile

I am looking forward to the Halloween Read-a-thon hosted by YA books reviewed on October 15th-17th and have set my goal to read minimum of 3 but shooting for 4 books for that weekend- the titles are from Laurell K. Hamilton's: Anita Blake series.

And if I am lucky enough to finish those I will continue on to the fourth in the series- ' Lunatic cafe'

As for this week I am off to a slow start to Intertwined by Gena Showalter, and finally going to tackle Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, and Raised by wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. If I can keep up my motivation to read one after another I will be plenty ready for the awaited release of Beautiful Darkness on October 12 next week.

I would love to hear what everyone else has planned for this week and books TBR! Please Share!

Hope everyone's week is starting out GREAT!

WOW! My first Award.



I was super excited to find this morning that I have recieved  my very first blogger award from

The Bookish Snob

THANK YOU!

Here are the insructions for passing along this award

1. Thank and link back to the person that gave this award
2. Write 7 things about yourself
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked to let them know about the award

Ok here are 7 things about Moi!

1. I enjoy cleaning! As crazy as that sounds I enjoy the smelly goodness of Mr.Clean and lemon fresh dishwasher soap.

2. I am obsessed with Jalapeno peppers- ghost peppers- hec any peppers that have the HEAT! I will eat them with anything.

3. I have a little brother that is the same age as my oldest son, they are 7 years old and only one month apart, it's neat how good of friends they are.

4. I have always dreamed of having my own library in my house, (who hasn't huh!?) I'm thinking maybe an entire level of my house should be dedicated.. hahaha

5. If a Football game is on- I am watching! I enjoy very much!

6. My favorite author from middle school/Jr. High was Mary Higgins Clark- I Love her books

7. I love to travel- and have driven from Florida to Minnesota, from Minnesota to Wahington, and even south to Kansas and Oklahoma!

Now 15 blogs I want to pass this awesome award onto-

1.GReads!

2.Every Little Thing

3.Chazz Hart

4.Books Are A Girl's Best Friend

5.Young Adult Books Reviewed

6.The Crazy Bookworm

7.Abyss

8.Emilie's Book World

9.A book Obsession

10.Alison Can Read

11./-LA FEMME READERS-/

12. A Bookful of thoughts

13. In the Hammock

14.Good Choice Reading

15. Icey Books

I apologize to anyone who has already recieved or doesn't wish to recieve awards- I did my best to overlook your blogs and ensure that you hadn't posted 'No awards Please!' so before hand I apologize!

You all are fantastic!

BOOK BLOGGER HOP

The Book blogger Hop is hosted every week at Crazy for Books

This weeks question comes from Tina at Book Couture

"How do you spread the word about your blog?

(e.g. Social Networking sites, Book Blog Directories, comments on other blogs...)"

I am totally new to blogging and netwroking my blog. So far I have really just been working on building up my content and posting the links on Facebook. This week I have discovered so many Blogs and so many sites to network with to expand the followers and content of my Blog! I have been leaving lots of comments and enjoying looking at some of the amazing blogs ya'all have out there! I am just amazed at the time and creativeness that people invest in their Blogs! It is very Inspiring! I look forward to many mor Blog hop Fridays!

To participate just head over to Crazy for books and leave your link, grab the logo and post it on your blog and have fun Hoppin until Monday the 4th!

Follow many and comment alot!

FOLLOW FRIDAY

Follow Friday is a weekly event hosted by Rachel at Parajunkee's view .

This is my first Follow Friday and I am thankful to be apart of it as I am new to the Blog scene!

Thanks to everyone who stops by!

Happy Friday

Now I am off to Follow....

'Torment' review... WHOA!

Torment

452 pages

Delacorte Press

Lauren Kate

Sequel to 'Fallen'

Lucinda is sure that she and Daniel are meant to be together forever. Now they are forced apart in a desperate bid to save Luce from the Outcasts–immortals who want her dead. As she discovers more about her past lives, Luce starts to suspect that Daniel is hiding something. What if he has lied to her about their shared past? What if Luce is really meant to be with someone else?

Review:

I am just in awe at what this book has added to first novel 'Fallen' Typically I am skeptical about sequels and they often don't live up to the first novel. 'Torment' was just breathtakingly amazing. The love between Lucinda Price and Daniel was even more intense and raw faced with Luce's unsureness about everything as it seems Daniel is withholding so much from her. I have to admit I started to get annoyed- it seemed too often, like a broken record, Luce was pleading for someone to fill her in on some 4-1-1; and yet was shone away from any real answers, everytime- however this left great opportune for the next novel to reveal this very suspense riden secret that will drive me insane to wait until next summer for the third installment 'Passion'.

I appreciate the new scenery, honestly, the relocation of Luce to the California school was a nice transition into a new plot and setting, and of course introducing the intriguing new characters.

Miles, Shelby, Francesca & Steven, Dawn & Jasmine- they were all so different form the students Luce met at Sword & Cross. I especially liked the development of the 'Shadows' or 'Announcers' that haunted Luce since the beginning of this story in 'Fallen' I am glad to see that the autor elaborated on what they are and the abilites of the shadows- this book gave alot of insight to Luce's past which the announcers played a major role in.

The closer Luce and Miles were getting through her stay at Shoreline ( new school in Claifornia) the more I found myself holding my breath- just the thought of Luce second guessing this passionate never ending, undying, tragic love of hers and Daniels, was just heart wrenching.

I was very pleased to see the old gang Arriane, Cam, Molly, Gabbe and Daniel be joined with Luce's new friends at the Thanksgiving dinner that Luce was relieved to be allowed to spend at her parents- might I add where all Hell broke lose- still it was a nice touch that they all showed up unnannouced and were all welcomed.

The fight that ends this story was just crazy- because it takes place at Luce's real home following their Thanksgiving dinner and so much is happening- all are involved new and old friends, angels & nephilim, and mortals. I am sad for the end of this book, because again there is so much unanswered and so much sadness at the end. It leaves me wanting more and hopeful for the next book.

On a final note- I read this book in under 24 hours- I just couldn't put it down (hence the reason for my 2:30 am post!) It truley lives up to it's title

'TORMENT'