Hi guys!
Welcome back to another day, another post here at Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers.
Today's second post is actually one that should have gone LIVE yesterday (my apologies to the host) but somehow or another, fell off my schedule. *sigh* No worries though because I'm bringing it to you LIVE and in color today, or at least it will be once our young leading lady finds herself again, more on that in a moment. Straight to you from Virtual Author Book Tours, it's time to meet today's blog tour guest and book of choice....
by
9781497532731
Create Space
About the book....
“When you die, your spirit wakes in the north, in the City of the Dead. There, you wander the cold until one of your living loved ones finds you, says “Goodbye,” and Sends you to the next world.
After her parents die, 12-year-old Sophie refuses to release their spirits. Instead, she resolves to travel to the City of the Dead to bring her mother and father’s spirits back home with her.
Taking the long pilgrimage north with her gruff & distant grandmother—by train, by foot, by boat; over ruined mountains and plains and oceans—Sophie struggles to return what death stole from her. Yet the journey offers her many hard, unexpected lessons—what to hold on to, when to let go, and who she must truly bring back to life.”
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I love titles like this. Before you even begin to read the synopsis or turn the first page, it already has you thinking. Is this a story about a dead girl coming back to life? Is it a zombie tale? A ghost story? Is it the lead that is now among the living or someone else within the story? Exactly how do they come back to life? Magic? Sorcery? Were they ever really dead? All these questions and more JUST from the title! Pretty amazing, right?
In this case, the title is actually even deeper than that for the story is about a young lady, our Miss Sophie, and her journey back to life. Is she dead? No, but she might as well be. Now, I don't mean that to sound cruel or heartless, honestly....but the way she makes it through each day, with no feeling, no joy, no moments of happiness in any fashion, is heartbreaking. So if one were to have a living, breathing, BEATING heart, it would snap in two. Why is she so broken? Well, it's not because she's living with her grandmother who barely gives her the time of day let alone a smile, hug, or touch of warmth. It's not because she's finally scored a job in the local bakery and can't make the loaves rise to save her life. No, all of those are a product of the deep loss she's feels, or rather felt within....the loss of her parents.
You see, they've both passed away, leaving her a tiny ship meandering in the vast ocean of life. In this town, in this literary world, it's not as simple as passing away, bury the deceased, and move along with your life. Those loved ones left behind, those that bound the lost's spirits to this world must travel to the great north to Send them on their way; to wish them a final goodbye. Sounds simple enough still, and yet the journey is so much more. It's about struggles and hardships. It's about digging deeper within oneself for someone else and in the end, growth of strength and spirit. For you see, everything she experiences on the way from the harshness and cold to the unexpected warmth of a stranger's arms, sets the framework for her own threads to this world. They are work together in changing her initial path of ensnaring her parents spirits for her own needs to finally being able to let go.
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| Author Craig Staufenberg |
How you ask? I won't tell you. Why? Because it wouldn't be right. You need to have your own experiences with the whole cast, including her grisly grandmother who is really much more caring than she lets on. For it is only through these experiences that the story will reveal its true power to you. Just like with any story, the author gives it meaning, but the reader makes it their own, fashions it just so to fit the "them" that they are right now at this moment. So if you're ready to explore the world through the eyes of loss, journey through pain and suffering, and come out the other side a wiser, warmer soul than before, this is definitely the book for you. Recommended read for Young Adult fans of middle group range and older due to concepts and challenges met.
Review copy received courtesy of Virtual Author Book Tours. (THANKS!) For more information on this title as well as those tours forthcoming, be sure to stop by their official site. To discover more about the mind behind the author, catch him at his site, Facebook page, Google+ presence, or via Twitter. This title was released earlier this year so be on the lookout for it on a bookstore shelf or virtual retailer of your choosing. The tour continues through November, so make a point of stopping by a time or two (the stops of which can be seen on the official tour page)...you never know what you'll discover.
Until next time....happy reading!
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