Welcome to the Book Blitz for Maya and the Rising Dark by Rena Barron hosted by TBR and Beyond Tours.
Maya and the Rising Dark
By Rena Barron
Publishing Date: September 22, 2020
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Synopsis:
In this highly anticipated contemporary fantasy, twelve-year-old Maya’s search for her missing father puts her at the center of a battle between our world, the Orishas, and the mysterious and sinister Dark world. Perfect for fans of Aru Shah and the End of Time and The Serpent’s Secret.
Twelve-year-old Maya is the only one in her South Side Chicago neighborhood who witnesses weird occurrences like werehyenas stalking the streets at night and a scary man made of shadows plaguing her dreams. When Papa goes missing, Maya is thrust into a world both strange and familiar as she uncovers the truth. Her father is the guardian of the veil between our world and the Dark—where an army led by the Lord of Shadows, the man from Maya’s nightmares, awaits. Now that the veil is failing, the Lord of Shadows is determined to destroy the human world and it’s up to Maya to stop him. She just hopes she can do it in time to attend Comic-Con before summer’s over.
Rena Barron grew up in small-town Alabama where stories of magic and adventure sparked her imagination. After penning her first awful poem in middle school, she graduated to writing short stories and novels by high school.
From a very young age she loved reading stories where kids saved the world, tamed dragons, wielded magic, flew spaceships, became the chosen one. She desperately searched for characters in books who looked like her and was always disappointed to find none, which fueled her early interest in writing.
Before HarperTeen acquired her Young Adult Epic Fantasy, Kingdom of Souls, Rena spent 10 years in the query trends–writing across multiple genres and age groups in the pursuit of publication. In 2017, she entered Pitch Wars, a popular and highly sought-after online mentorship program that included an agent showcase round. Rena’s entry (then titled “The Last Witchdoctor”) received multiple offers of representation. She signed with Suzie Townsend at New Leaf Literary shortly after, and the manuscript went on to sell in a heated auction.
In addition to the Kingdom of Souls series, Rena also has written a middle grade epic fantasy titled Maya and The Rising Dark debuting in Spring 2020, pitched as Stranger Things meets Percy Jackson, that sold in a pre-empt to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. On a personal note, Rena loves all things science fiction and fantasy, ghosts, and superheroes. When she’s not writing, she can be found reading or brushing up on her French.
Welcome to my spot in the blog tour for A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens hosted by TBR and Beyond Tours. I was excited to read this book because I love any books about witches. I would like to thank TBR and Beyond Tours and the author Sasha Laurens for the opportunity to review the book.
By Sasha Laurens
Publisher: Razorbill Publishing date: July 28th 2020
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Synopsis:
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets The Craft when modern witches must save teens stolen by an ancient demon in this YA fantasy-thriller debut.
Dan and Liss are witches. The Black Book granted them that power. Harnessing that power feels good, especially when everything in their lives makes them feel powerless.
During a spell gone wrong, Liss’s boyfriend is snatched away by an evil entity and presumed dead. Dan and Liss’s friendship dies that night, too. How can they practice magic after the darkness that they conjured?
Months later, Liss discovers that her boyfriend is alive, trapped underground in the grips of an ancient force. She must save him, and she needs Dan and the power of The Black Book to do so. Dan is quickly sucked back into Liss’s orbit and pushes away her best friend, Alexa. But Alexa has some big secrets she’s hiding and her own unique magical disaster to deal with.
When another teenager disappears, the girls know it’s no coincidence. What greedy magic have they awakened? And what does it want with these teens it has stolen?
Set in the atmospheric wilds of California’s northern coast, Sasha Laurens’s thrilling debut novel is about the complications of friendship, how to take back power, and how to embrace the darkness that lives within us all.
If you like reading about friendships, dark magic, demons, curses, and kidnapped boyfriends then this book is for you. The book is about best friends who find a book of dark magic and a boy who comes between them until they have to find him and figure out what evil is taking other teens.
This book help me out of my reading slump that I have been in for the last couple months. The author’s writing style kept me wanting more and turning the pages to see what was going to happen next.
Out of the three girls, I really liked and was my favorite was Alexa. She was a very interesting character and I wanted to more of her in the book. My least favorite was Liss, she was really selfish and self-centered. She was always playing the victim and everything had to be about herself.
Overall, I really enjoyed and loved this book, I’m glad that I was chosen to read this debut YA fantasy-thriller. I am looking forward to more from Sasha.
Favorite Quotes
“It was too much – too much power, more than she was built for, and if she couldn’t contain it -“
“I just like it, you know? It’s like it helps you forget, for a while.”
“But the world is a tangled knot. How do we untangled it.”
About the Author
SASHA LAURENS grew up in Northern California, where she learned to drive on Highway 1’s switchback turns and got accustomed to the best weather in the world. After studying creative writing and literature at Columbia University, she lived in New York for years and, at various times, in Russia. She currently resides in Michigan, where she is pursuing a PhD in political science.
Hello! Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Forgotten (House of Night Other World #3) by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast. The tour is being hosted by Fantastic Flying Book Club.
I am excited to share my review and favorite quotes. I love the House of Night series and I was very excited to be able to review and be part of the blog tour for Forgotten.
Before he was freed by Neferet, Kalona
was imprisoned within the earth for centuries because of the Darkness in his
heart. But what happened to the Other World’s Kalona? It’s as though he’s been
forgotten, or maybe he never existed at all …
In the present, Other Neferet may have
left her House of Night, but she has far from given up her goal of immortality
and world domination. As she operates in secret to gain access to Old Magick,
the new High Priestess, Anastasia Langford, works toward peace and acceptance
for the vampyres of the Other World. But just as Other Kevin’s broken heart
will take time to heal, peace in that world will also take time and work—and
not all of the Other World vampyres want peace. After all, why should they return
to being shunned by humans, especially when they’ve had a taste of how it feels
to be in power?
Meanwhile, Zoey is desperate to help rid the Other World of Neferet once and for all, and not knowing what’s going on over there is eating away at her. But, as the Nerd Herd warns, it’s far too dangerous to call on Old Magick time and again. As a distraction, she throws herself into her work and attempts to bring the humans and vampyres of Tulsa closer together with the first human-vampyre swim meet in history! It’s too bad that something always seems to go wrong whenever the stakes are high.
What happens when worlds clash and powers that should be left alone are awakened? Can Other Kevin and his world heal from the wounds Neferet continues to inflict? Can Old Magick ever truly be harnessed and used for good? Or will Darkness extinguish Light and leave our heroes broken, hopeless, and as forgotten as Kalona of the Silver Wings? Don’t miss this second to last volume in the House of Night Other World saga!
First I would like to thank The Fantastic Flying Book Club and Blackstone Publishing for selecting me to be part of this blog tour. I have been a fan of House of Night series since I discover them in 2011 and I was happy that P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast decided to do another set of books in HoN world with the Otherworld series.
The book begins with the story of the Other Erebus and Kalona, it shows how Kalona changes and makes a big sacrifice in the end in of his story. In the Otherworld, Other Kevin and Other Zoey with the Nerd Herd have defeated Other Neferet from her evil plans. Of course, they thought they defeated her but she does survive and comes up with another plan to become powerful. She aligns herself with the White Bull to achieve her plan of destruction and immortality. On the way, she enlist Other Lynette who is a human and becomes her handmaiden.
The book has a lot of plot twists and go into different directions which I thought was really good and kept me turning the pages. The book mainly focuses on Neferet and her handmaiden Lynette. It goes into how Neferet is trying to achieve her quest to become a real Goddess while keeping the Other Kevin and Stark off her tracks. We also see Zoey and the Nerd Herd back in the House of Night world setting and how they are dealing with trying to work with humans to allows fledglings to participate in other things outside of the school.
The book deals with grief and how it effects the persons afterward. It was nice to see Other Grandma Redbird and reading how she help Other Kevin and Stark on trying to move on from their lost and not be afraid to grieve and show it. I thought it was nice touch in the book because you really don’t see address often in books.
I really enjoy this book and I would recommend the Otherworld series to anyone who has read the HoN series. Definitely have to read those first before going into this series. It was so nice to see Zoey and Nerd Herd back again. I can’t wait for the fourth book to see what happens next.
Also I love this cover!!! It is gorgeous!
Favorite Quotes
“Joy isn’t easy or inherent. It is a choice, and not always an easy one – not at first.”
“No, my sweet boy. Do not hide your grief. There is no shame in showing your tears. Kevin, being a man means claiming all your power.”
“Well, yeah, but I was talking about hormones. There must be thousands of kids in there.”
“Okay, novices. Watch how it’s done. She stood, cupped her hands around her mouth and expertly cheered, GO IN HARD! COME OUT WET! R-A-V-E-N-S! RAVENS! RAVENS! RAVENS!”
“Another win for me, she thought. And I will keep winning, especially now that I am allied with someone who understands what is most important in life – power – and the safety it affords. Choosing to follow this vampyre who will soon be immortal and rule the world was the smartest decision I ever made.”
About the Authors
PC was born in the Midwest, and grew up being shuttled back-and-forth between Illinois and Oklahoma, which is where she fell in love with Quarter Horses and mythology (at about the same time). After high school, she joined the United States Air Force and began public speaking and writing. After her tour in the USAF, she taught high school for 15 years before retiring to write full time. PC is a #1 New York Times and #1 USA Today Best-Selling author and a member of the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame. Her novels have been awarded the prestigious: Oklahoma Book Award, YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Prism, Holt Medallion, Daphne du Maurier, Booksellers’ Best, and the Laurel Wreath. PC is an experienced teacher and talented speaker. Ms. Cast lives in Oregon near her fabulous daughter, her adorable pack of dogs, her crazy Maine Coon, and a bunch of horses. House of Night Other World, book 1, LOVED, releases July 11th. SUN WARRIOR, book 2 in the Tales of a New World series releases October 17th.
Kristin Cast is a #1 NY Times and #1 USA Today bestselling author who teamed with her mother to write the wildly successful HOUSE OF NIGHT series. She has editorial credits, a thriving t-shirt line, and a passion for all things paranormal.
When away from her writing desk, Kristin loves going on adventures with her friends, family, and significant other, playing with her French Bulldogs (Grace Kelly and Sir Laurence Olivier), and discovering new hobbies. This year she’ll work on handstands, gardening, and taking her new puppy (Baloo) to puppy classes. #HoNLoved releases July 11th.
Don’t forget to hit the giveaway button above for chance to win a great prize and also check out my Instagram post for a chance to win an prizes there. Thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to check out the other bloggers tour post!
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