Booksparks #PopUpBlogTour: The Midnights by Sarah Nicole Smetana

HI there!
Welcome back to Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers.
Booksparks is at it again with another....



#PopUpBlogTour!


That's right!
It's time for another FABULOUS #PopUpBlogTour thanks to the wonderful folks at Booksparks who are eager to put YOU right there with the best of the best of recently released titles...or in this case, PRE-RELEASE titles!  That's right.  Today's Young Adult pick hits bookstore shelves THIS TUESDAY (03/06/18) via HarperTEEN, so at least once we stoke the fires of interest, you won't have that long to wait.  You're welcome.  ^-^  Anywho, let's get this party started as we introduce today's #PopUpBlogTour title... 

The Midnights

by

Sarah Nicole Smetana

9780062644626

HarperTEEN

About the book...

This voice-driven coming-of-age YA novel is perfect for fans of Katie Cotugno and Playlist for the Dead.

Susannah Hayes has never been in the spotlight, but she dreams of following her father, a former rock star, onto the stage. As senior year begins, she’s more interested in composing impressive chord patterns than college essays, certain that if she writes the perfect song, her father might finally look up from the past long enough to see her. But when he dies unexpectedly, her dreams—and her reality—shatter.

While Susannah struggles with grief, her mother uproots them to a new city. There, Susannah realizes she can reinvent herself however she wants: a confident singer-songwriter, member of a hip band, embraced by an effortlessly cool best friend. But Susannah is not the only one keeping secrets, and soon, harsh revelations threaten to unravel her life once again.

Set against the scintillating landscape of Southern California, The Midnights is an evocative coming-of-age debut about loss, creativity, and finding your voice while you’re still finding yourself.

IndieBound | Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Book Depository | Target

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This is a story about midnights...that mysterious time between morning and night that often gets wiled away as we slumber between the sheets.  That's the norm for most, but what if it wasn't?  What if during that magical in-between, where you have one foot in nighttime and one foot in morning, you were spending time with those you love, making memories to cherish, and impressions you'll need to hold on to all too soon? What if you were not only able to reach out to someone who is more desperately lost than they realize, but also continue the journey of finding your self?  THAT'S what this book is about.

Susannah had a tumultuous relationship with her parents, I mean what teen doesn't to some degree, but hers wasn't so much about HER but about HIM...her dad.  Once upon a time, he was a great rocker, but the free spirit and drive to the top also came with some pretty bad habits.  One ultimatum later and all that talent ended up on the sidelines, but so did most the dangers clinging to his back...until they weren't, leaving him for days in its manic grip and his loved ones on the outside looking in.  It wasn't always that way, and he did love his family, he just couldn't seem to balance the two all the time, and when tragedy struck, it threw things off kilter even more.  The spillover tapped into Susannah's spirit, leading her on a search for answers that just might never come, but it also brought her and her mother closer, removed the shroud over long kept secrets, and ultimately allowed her to spread her own wings and fly.

In the end, it was an interesting YA story about finding ourselves, giving ourselves room for error, and realizing that those bumps along the way go into making us who we are. No one is perfect, but it's what we do after the southward turn that shows our true character.

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About the author...

Sarah Nicole Smetana received her BFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University and her MFA in Fiction from the New School. Originally from Orange, California, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their three-legged cat.

SITE  |  FACEBOOK  |  TWITTER  |  INSTAGRAM

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Special thanks to Leila at Booksparks and the HarperTEEN team for the chance to bring this title to you as well as the copy for review! (THANKS!) For more information on this title, the author, the publisher, or the promotion team, feel free to click through the links provided above. This title is set to hit bookstore shelves THIS TUESDAY, so pre-order your copy now or mark your calendar!

Until next time, remember...if it looks good, READ IT!



PRE-PUB PARTY: The Tombs by Deborah Schaumberg

Hi there!

Welcome back to Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers.

So, I don't know about you, but I can hardly believe that we are already halfway (plus 2 DAYS!) through the month.  I mean, it feels like it JUST changed from January to February and we're already staring March partially in the face.  Good thing there has been plenty of GREAT reading to blur the edges, am I right?  Well, let me tell you about another one...

Today, we are turning the spotlight on a NEW Young Adult Fantasy title set to release this Tuesday (02/20/18) via HarperTeen.  It's penned by a new name to the writing arena, but reads as if from a seasoned pro, and trust me when I say, IT'S SO GOOD!  Yep, totally fangirling over here, but you'll be joining me in a moment.  Ladies and gents, YA fans of teenage years and older, please join me as we welcome today's book of choice...

The Tombs

by

Deborah Schaumberg

9780062656445

HarperTeen

About the book...

New York, 1882. A dark, forbidding city, and no place for a girl with unexplainable powers.

Deborah Schaumberg’s gripping debut takes readers on a breathless trip across a teeming turn-of-the-century New York and asks the question: Where can you hide in a city that wants you buried?

Sixteen-year-old Avery Kohl pines for the life she had before her mother was taken. She fears the mysterious men in crow masks who locked her mother in the Tombs asylum for being able to see what others couldn’t.

Avery denies the signs in herself, focusing instead on her shifts at the ironworks factory and keeping her inventor father out of trouble. Other than listening to secondhand tales of adventure from her best friend, Khan, an ex-slave, and caring for her falcon, Seraphine, Avery spends her days struggling to survive.

Like her mother’s, Avery’s powers refuse to be contained. When she causes a bizarre explosion at the factory, she has no choice but to run from her lies, straight into the darkest corners of the city.

Avery must embrace her abilities and learn to wield their power—or join her mother in the cavernous horrors of the Tombs. And the Tombs has secrets of its own: strange experiments are being performed on “patients”...and no one knows why.

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I was curious about the title, intrigued by the cover, and once I began, I just couldn't stop.  That's how mesmerizing I found the story to be.

We're in the early 1800's, Brooklyn, New York, and seeing the world through the gritty, muddied streets of the average Joe/Jane...or rather the ones that once were higher up, knocked down by circumstance and odd occurrences.  Young Avery is a girl in a boy's world, just trying to help her father, the only family she has left, as they claw and crawl each day into something resembling a life. Avery is a whip smart lass who knows what has to be done and how to do it, and despite the heartbreak she carries with her, and the uncertainty of things to come, she always seems to find her way.  Meanwhile, a man claiming to be a doctor tempts homeless urchins with coin and a promise, snatching the ones he wants while leaving the rest to wonder what happened.  Oh no, that's not the LEAST bit creepy... *-* Perhaps more disturbing than the events I just mentioned is that Avery recognizes him (or should I say it because seriously, SHUDDER INDUCING SPECIMEN ALERT!)...and not from a friendly family picnic either.  His face has haunted her nightmares and even poked holes in her days, and yet the WHY is something she can't answer...at least COULDN'T answer...and boy is she going to regret being able to put a reason and name with that face.

So much happens in a relatively short span of time.  We learn what became of Avery's mother, why her father vehemently warns her against visiting the gypsies, the identity and fate of the blue-eyed breath stealing boy from the festival night, the function of Avery's "condition" and the lengths to which some will go to obtain control over all.  Some of it's pretty heady stuff, while others you simply feel in your heart and your gut.  There's mystery, a little romance, friendship, manipulation, sadistic pursuits of power, freedom, confinement, terror (those crows are definitely something from a nightmare), and above all, the resilience of the human heart to see the error of its ways even when things seem so far gone...well, of MOST to see anyway.

By books end, I was gobsmacked.  I mean, it took me at least 24 hours to contemplate even how to describe everything because I was still reeling from the experience.  It was AMAZING! So many things (as illustrated above, AND MORE), and the feels (oh the feels!), and lives hanging in the balance (Hurricane, Seraphine, Kahn, our mysterious gypsy boy, her father...so many others!), and our interconnected energy (definitely an eye opener), and so much love, but also so much hatred, and just...WOW.  I don't normally read the reviews of others before writing my own, and in truth, I didn't peek until I was finished, but I was oddly surprised at some of the things others had to say, took offense to, or otherwise had issues with.  All I can say is this...in my opinion, I LOVED it; whether you do or not is entirely up to you.  Take a chance, approach with an open mind, and give yourself over to the history tinted but fantastically altered reality you'll certainly wish most aspects of will stay firmly in fiction.

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About the author...

Deborah Schaumberg was born in Brooklyn, not far from where her novel The Tombs takes place. She grew up renovating dilapidated old houses with her family. She and her father would walk the rooms, floor by floor, making up stories about the inhabitants that were filled with dark secrets, monsters, and, of course, ghosts. Deborah is a writer and an artist whose work always has an element of fantasy to it, and since she also studied architecture, settings are equally important. It was on a trek to the Annapurna Sanctuary in Nepal that she imagined a girl with the ability to see energy, and the seed of The Tombs was planted. She collects old bottles, and her favorite holiday is, you guessed it, Halloween. Deborah lives with her family and two dogs in Maryland, just outside DC. Visit her on the web at www.deborahschaumberg.com.

TWITTER  |  FACEBOOK

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Special thanks to Casey at Media Masters Publicity and the team at HarperTeen for the chance to bring this title to you and the eARC for review.  (THANKS!)  For more information on this title, the author, the publisher, or those promotion on the horizon, feel free to click through the links provided above.  This title is set to release February 20th, 2018 via HarperTeen, and imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, so mark your calendar or pre-order your copy today!

Until next time, remember...if it looks good, READ IT!

Booksparks #PopUpBlogTour: EVERLESS by Sara Holland

Hi there!

Welcome back to Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers.

I know, I know...you've already heard from me today...well TOUGH COOKIES!  I have more to say, or rather to share, and it simply can't wait!  In fact, it's SO SPECTACULAR that the fab folks at Booksparks put together an impromptu celebration in the shape of, you guessed it, a...

#PopUpBlogTour!

That's right!

A #PopUpBlogTour which means they put out the word about a great MUST READ title, you respond as quick as you can to snag a spot on the roster, read it in a hurry, and post in a flash...EVERYWHERE you can!  Sorta like a flash mob only digital and with books.  Sound fun?  Well, it has been thus far, and if at least a handful of YOU enjoy the book I'm highlighting today, it'll be THAT much better.  So, ready or not, here comes today's #PopUpBlogTour book of choice...

Everless

by

Sara Holland

9780062653659

HarperTEEN

About the book...

In the kingdom of Sempera, time is currency—extracted from blood, bound to iron, and consumed to add time to one’s own lifespan. The rich aristocracy, like the Gerlings, tax the poor to the hilt, extending their own lives by centuries.

No one resents the Gerlings more than Jules Ember. A decade ago, she and her father were servants at Everless, the Gerlings’ palatial estate, until a fateful accident forced them to flee in the dead of night. When Jules discovers that her father is dying, she knows that she must return to Everless to earn more time for him before she loses him forever.

But going back to Everless brings more danger—and temptation—than Jules could have ever imagined. Soon she’s caught in a tangle of violent secrets and finds her heart torn between two people she thought she’d never see again. Her decisions have the power to change her fate—and the fate of time itself.

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A beautiful prison is still a prison...

Everless is not only the title of this wondrous novel, but the name given to the homestead (of sorts) where the Gerling family and their "faithful" servants dwell...and where the Queen calls home when she deems it worthy of her presence.  Before you begin bowing and pledging your allegiance, perhaps you should learn more about the ruling family first.  You see, once upon a time there were two who walked the earth heart in hand, unheeding of time, and careless with their footsteps.  One day those never-ending bliss filled wanders came to a screeching halt.  Their days were all of a sudden numbered, their time no longer their own, and in desperation to escape their captor and return to their former state, blood iron was created.  Problem is once a heart is broken, it's hard to reassemble the pieces as they once were, with the lightness, merriment, and TRUST that once lived...and that mistrust can give birth to darker times still.

Did I mention I LOVED THIS BOOK?  Because I did...really and truly.

The relationship between father and daughter, despite the hard times, seemed loving, though he was definitely protecting her from something...and what a something it was!  But hiding it from her made you question if it was really more than she could handle?  Once revealed, umm, yeah...not more than but perhaps something she wasn't ready for at the time.  Still, having the support of family, no matter how small or distant, would have gone a long way when it was revelation time.  As Jules strives to hold things together, she gets closer and closer to things (and people!) she's been desperately warned away from, but what can I say...our girl is made of STRONG stuff!  (Much stronger than SHE even realizes!)

In the end, it was AMAZING! So much happened and yet so much more could still. Tell me this is only the first. Tell me there's going to be more. Tell me we won't have to wait forever to find out what will happen to Everless and everyone we hold dear or at arms length?!  You'll get lost in the adventure, caught up in the underlying relationships and romance, and simply carried away with the myths and legends explored while wondering...what if?  I loved how the author kept you in the moment while still weaving days of old throughout.  I loved how she created characters to love, loathe, and fear...while still giving us surprises galore. There's so much to love, it's probably best if you just get your hands on a copy STAT.  ^-^

Highly recommended for Young Adult Fantasy fans of all ages.

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About the author...

Sara Holland grew up between small-town Minnesota and the countless fictional worlds of books. She graduated from Wesleyan University and worked in a tea shop, a dentist’s office, and a state capitol building before heading to New York to work in publishing. These days, she can be found exploring the city’s bookstores or finding new ways to put caffeine in her bloodstream. Everless is her debut novel. Visit her online at www.sarahollandwrites.com.

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Special thanks to the #PopUpBlogTour Booksparks team for the fabulous chance to participate in this promotion and to HarperTEEN for the ARC for review. (THANKS!) For more information on this title, the author, the publisher, or the next big thing from Booksparks, click through the links provided above. This title just released at the beginning of the month, so be on the lookout for it on a bookstore shelf or virtual retailer of your choosing.

Until next time, remember...if it looks good, READ IT!