Night School: Legacy (Trailer & Blog Tour Details)

Looks brilliant, right? Well I have read it and can confirm it`s awesome!!!

Here is more information about the book:

From Goodreads: In the last year, Allie's survived three arrests, two breakups and one family breakdown. The only bright point has been her new life at Cimmeria Academy. It's the one place she's felt she belongs. And the fact that it's brought the dreamy Carter West into her life hasn't hurt...But far from being a safe haven, the cloistered walls of Cimmeria are proving more dangerous than Allie could've imagined. The students, and faculty, are under threat and Allie's family - from her mysterious grandma to her runaway brother - are at the centre of the storm. Allie is going to have to choose between protecting her family and trusting her friends. But secrets have a way of ripping even the strongest relationships apart...

I`ll also be part of the blog tour next week (3 Jan) so stop by for that!  Plus the tour is running an awesome competition - check below for the details:

Do you have what it takes to face the Night School challenge?

To celebrate the publication of CJ Daugherty’s new book Legacy, she is offering fans of Night School the chance to join Allie and her friends in becoming members of the secret student group Night School. In order to prove you’ve got what it takes to join the highly competitive Night School you will have to distinguish the 14 skills every Night School member should have which will be hidden across the 14 blogs taking part in the tour.

Everyone who successfully completes the challenge will become a Night School member for life and will receive the Night School membership charter and Night School members’ badge as proof of membership, but, because intelligence and speed are two of the most important Night School skills, we will be rewarding those of you who are able to collect and enter the 14 skills in the fastest time. The first ten entrants to correctly enter the 14 skills will win an exclusive members only goodie bag, including: personalised copies of both Legacy and Night School as well as a Night School members material badge which can be sewn onto a book bag or school blazer and a place on an exclusive Google Hangouts chat with CJ Daugherty herself!

Night School Challenge Rules:

1.Visit 14 book blogs between 3rd – 10th January

2.Locate and collect 14 Night School Skill words

3.Return to the Night School Members page to enter your collected skills by 13th January

4.The entry form will be live from January 10th and will close at mid night on January 13th

5.If you successfully complete the challenge you will become a Night School member for life – when this happens you will receive a membership charter and Night School members badge to download

6.The first ten people to receive Night School membership will be rewarded for their speed with an exclusive Night School goodie bag and a place on a Google hangouts chat with CJ Daugherty!

For more information, visit the members page on CJ Daugherty’s website here

UKYABB Secret Santa

This year Lynsey from Narratively Speaking organised a UK, YA Secret Santa - and since I love all things YA I decided to take part.

Here's what I was sent:

* Insurgent Collectors Edition US Hardback (!!!!!!!!)  I really wanted this so I was super pleased when I unwrapped it!
* A bookmark - I am Dauntless (how awesome is that?)

Thanks Lynsey for organising it and massive thanks to my Secret Santa (aka Casey!)- you both rock:)

Film casting the Irresistible boys (Irresistible Blog Tour)

Today we have Liz Bankes, who has stopped by to talk about who she'd cast as the male leads in her novel Irresistible. I shall pass you over...

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Film casting the Irresistible boys

It's been a bit of a chore doing this book – I mean, I just had to spend an evening searching for pictures of hot men to play Jamie and Dan in my imaginary film-casting. HOW AWFUL.

Sexy, rich and bored, Jamie hangs around his parents’ castle causing trouble, especially for Mia.

Played by Freddie Stroma

So this guy was in Harry Potter. HOW DID I MISS THIS? So if you google him there are plenty of pictures of him in shirts, dressed up all posh and Jamie-like, but I accidentally typed ‘shirtless’ instead. 

So he has the right look for Jamie, but I’d need to know if he is good at being blunt and sarcastic and for that I’d have to meet him. So if we could arrange that please?

Funny, lovely Dan is brightening up Mia’s summer as they work together in the restaurant of Radleigh Castle.

Played by one of McFly

McFly are lovely. I feel a bit like they are my friends, which they could be if you count ‘people I talk to in my head and follow on Twitter’ as friends. Dan is funny, optimistic and loves life. I could see him in McFly. As for which one he looks most like, you’ll have to read it and decide for yourself!

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Thanks Liz!

Irresistible is available to buy now as an ebook and will be published in paperback April 2013.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the tour!  The next stop is over at Stepping Out of The Page tomorrow.

Sneak Peek: Prodigy by Marie Lu

For all of you super excited to read the sequel to Marie Lu's brilliant Legend, here is the first chapter of Prodigy!

Prodigy First Chapter

Prodigy is published 29 January 2013.  In the meantime I shall leave you with the book and game trailers - enjoy!

Live Through This by Mindi Scott

From Goodreads: From the outside, Coley Sterling’s life seems pretty normal . . . whatever that means. It’s not perfect—her best friend is seriously mad at her and her dance team captains keep giving her a hard time—but Coley’s adorable, sweet crush Reece helps distract her. Plus, she has a great family to fall back on—with a mom and stepdad who would stop at nothing to keep her siblings and her happy.

But Coley has a lot of secrets. She won’t admit—not even to herself—that her almost-perfect life is her own carefully-crafted façade. That for years she’s been burying the shame and guilt over a relationship that crossed the line. Now that Coley has the chance at her first real boyfriend, a decade’s worth of lies are on the verge of unraveling.

In this unforgettable powerhouse of a novel, Mindi Scott offers an absorbing, layered glimpse into the life of an everygirl living a nightmare that no one would suspect.

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say this book deals with abuse – there is a very touching post on the author’s website detailing her reasons for writing the novel – and I found it to be a very honest and intelligent portrayal. I’m sure there are many readers who could be experiencing something similar and this goes a long way in showing how it’s not as black and white as people often believe it to be.

I really love Mindi Scott’s writing style and how quickly I get into the mind of her characters. Straight away, I found myself in Coley’s world – as uncomfortable as that was. You get to feel her confusion, how repulsed she is with herself, how embed the need to hide what is happening to her is, how much she blames herself and, at the same time, how much she does care and love the person doing this to her.

I admit I had a very clear idea in my mind after the opening chapter who I thought Coley was referring to – but I quickly started to feel a very strong sense of unease once I realized I had been mistaken. I don’t want to go into too much detail here because I think that might be too much of a spoiler – but I thought this aspect was cleverly done. What I also loved about this is that Mindi Scott shows how this situation is not clean cut. There is no violence, no movie style monster of pure evil – but it doesn’t change the fact that Coley is a victim here. She doesn’t ask for what happens to her and she is not responsible for it either. You can see how desperately Coley wants to believe it doesn’t happen – that it’s just a nightmare and not real – and she holds on to that.

I really loved Reece and the sweet relationship that builds between the two of them. I also adored Noah too – they have such a great friendship and he just cracked me up. The storyline involving Alejandra was good – was Coley punishing herself or blaming Alejandra for not seeing the truth? I think it was a clever way of showing that what was happening to Coley was beginning to affect other areas of her life – she was finding it harder to pretend it wasn’t happening.

I have to admit I felt like I needed a bit more at the end. In terms of Coley’s secret I felt the story ended on a positive note, but at the same time I wanted to follow that thread and see it unfold. I would definitely like to know what happened next – just to have a little bit more closure.

Having now read and loved both this and her previous novel Freefall I am really excited to see what Mindi Scott writes next!