Set sail with BLACKHEARTS and these amazing giveaways!

Today we've got something better than a hot new debut novel and a giveaway.

That's right. Better.

We've got a hot new debut novel and TWO giveaways!

All thanks to BLACKHEARTS. I had a chance to read this book while it traveled through the Sweet Sixteens debut author tour and I was absolutely blown away by it. You can read my review of it here, but trust me when I say I adored this book.

And that's why I'm so happy to help Nicole Castroman kick off her book release day with a pair of giveaways so two lucky readers can fall in love with Anne Barrett and Edward Drummond.

So without any further ado, let's get this book birthday started!



First we have our Blackhearts international giveaway where one lucky person will win a hardcover of Blackhearts wherever the BookDepository ships via Chasm of Books:

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And next we have our US only giveaway where someone will walk away with their very own signed hardcover of Blackhearts and a swag pack:

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Blackhearts 

Blackbeard the pirate was known for striking fear in the hearts of the bravest of sailors. But once he was just a young man who dreamed of leaving his rigid life behind to chase adventure in faraway lands. Nothing could stop him—until he met the one girl who would change everything.

Edward "Teach" Drummond, son of one of Bristol's richest merchants, has just returned from a year-long journey on the high seas to find his life in shambles. Betrothed to a girl he doesn’t love and sick of the high society he was born into, Teach dreams only of returning to the vast ocean he’d begun to call home. There's just one problem: convincing his father to let him leave and never come back.

Following her parents' deaths, Anne Barrett is left penniless and soon to be homeless. Though she’s barely worked a day in her life, Anne is forced to take a job as a maid in the home of Master Drummond. Lonely days stretch into weeks, and Anne longs for escape. How will she ever realize her dream of sailing to Curaçao—where her mother was born—when she's stuck in England?

From the moment Teach and Anne meet, they set the world ablaze. Drawn to each other, they’re trapped by society and their own circumstances. Faced with an impossible choice, they must decide to chase their dreams and go, or follow their hearts and stay.

Goodreads | IndieBound | Amazon | Barnes & Noble 

Want to witness everyone else gush about how good this book is? Check out these other blogs and join in on all the #PrePirateNation fun!

Chasm of Books

Bookmarks

Beauty and the Bookshelf

Chasing Faerytales

Artic Books

My Friends Are Fiction

The YA Booktraveler

Bookishness and Tea

Read.Read.Read.

Sophie Reads YA

Book review: ENTER TITLE HERE by Rahul Kanakia

Title: Enter Title Here
Author: Rahul Kanakia

Genre: YA Contemporary

Pages: 352 pages

Publication date: August 2, 2016

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Website: http://blotter-paper.com/


My Rating: 5 / 5


Not too many books promise you an unlikable character on the first page. And I'd say even fewer books put the fact that you'll be following a full-blown antihero right on the cover. It's rare. It's risky. And in order to pull it off effectively, I'm pretty sure the author needs to be either some world-building savant or a literary mad scientist.

Lucky for Rahul Kanakia, he's a bit of both.

Reshma Kapoor, the self-proclaimed best-of-the-best in her class, has one goal: to get into Stanford. But having the highest GPA and a laundry list of extra curriculars isn't enough. She needs something that will get her noticed in the stack of applicants. Her solution is simple (according to her). She's going to write a killer YA novel.

Now this is all revealed early in chapter one. And from then on, Reshma becomes a workaholic bulldozer, flattening anything and anyone who gets in her way of Stanford stardom. Her vision becomes so tunneled that she doesn't bat an eyelash when it comes to deciding how she'll manage her valedictorian victory. She quickly proves that she'll do whatever it takes to keep her status as the top student.

Seriously. Whatever it takes.

I kept waiting for the moment when I slammed the book closed and tossed it across the room. But I never did. In fact, I began developing a very strong respect for Reshma. And that's because Rahul gives her endless amounts of motivation for her actions. Reshma has every reason in the world to act the way she does and her drive to become the best is something we can all relate to in one way or another. I'm convinced that Reshma--while perfectly existing as the main character in her world--could easily exist as the antagonist in a companion novel. In fact, there are several characters Reshma interacts with who could fit the mold of "protagonist." But I love that they don't. Because even though she possesses so many qualities of the typical mean girl, Reshma's never the villain. She's the determined, resourceful, intelligent, and occasionally self-deprecating hero that we end up cheering for at times and cringing over at others.

And that's why Enter Title Here gets a hefty five stars. Because it's more than just a fantastic story. It's also a lesson on craft, motivation, and character building. It's a 352-page manual of how important and satisfying it can be to take a trope and tear it, twist it, wad it up so much that you find a way to present something old in a brand new way.


Add it on Goodreads.

Book Review: UNDERWATER by Marisa Reichardt

Title: Underwater Author: Marisa Reichardt Genre: YA Contemporary Pages: 288 pages Publication date: January 12, 2016 Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux Website: www.MarisaReichardt.com My Rating: 5 / 5 Morgan didn’t mean to do anything wrong that day. Actually, she meant to do something right. But her kind act inadvertently played a role in a deadly tragedy. In order to move on, Morgan must learn to forgive—first someone who did something that might be unforgivable, and then, herself. But Morgan can’t move on. She can’t even move beyond the front door of the apartment she shares with her mother and little brother. Morgan feels like she’s underwater, unable to surface. Unable to see her friends. Unable to go to school. When it seems Morgan can’t hold her breath any longer, a new boy moves in next door. Evan reminds her of the salty ocean air and the rush she used to get from swimming. He might be just what she needs to help her reconnect with the world outside. Underwater is a powerful, hopeful debut novel about redemption, recovery, and finding the strength it takes to face your past and move on. I talk about voice a lot. I tell students and aspiring writers that making theirs unique and personal to them is absolutely essential. I tell myself that I have to keep pushing to improve the one I've already developed in my own stories. Because voice...it's the blanket we build that the reader wraps themselves in while they read our work.  The voice can be warm and fuzzy. It can be heavy and soft. It can be prickly and slightly itchy. It can be a million different sensations. One thing I've never even considered, though, is how it can completely change within a story. Marisa Reichardt's Underwater does just that. She introduces us to Morgan, a teenager under a self-imposed house arrest. We don't know exactly why Morgan won't go outside. We catch glimpses of the events that led her to be so scared of the world beyond the threshold. She hints at it, comments on it, reminisces on the tragedy, and we feel every short breath, every skipped heartbeat, every bit of weight carried around by this girl. All because of the voice Reichardt wraps us in. But then... There's Evan. Morgan's mom. Morgan's brother. Her therapist. Her own desire to regain that connection with the life she's turned her back on.  And the voice begins to change. It's so subtle. So gradual and smooth that I didn't actually catch it at first. I was about three quarters through the book when I noticed that I could breathe easier. I was smiling. I wasn't gripping the edges of the book so hard that the cover was getting wrinkled. So I flipped back several chapters and realized that Reichardt had been weaving an entirely new blanket for me while I'd been reading. Everything from the descriptive language to the overall sentence structure had been evolving right under my nose without me knowing it.   It's brilliant. And so perfect for this story. Because this story is all about change and moving on. We finally discover what's been keeping Morgan locked inside her house all this time. And while this story doesn't get wrapped up in a tidy, neat, bow in some Disney-esque ending, it does leave us with such a wonderful sense of hope. This is a book I hope everyone reads at some point. For students and teachers, it's so relevant. To readers, it's rich with complexity. To writers, it's a study in how an author can create a character so compelling, so layered with emotion, one who changes so much within a story, that the voice has a complete arc of its own, too. And that's why I'm giving Underwater by Marisa Reichardt a full five stars. Her book not only was a heartbreaking read that left me smiling, it made me want to become a better writer.

Book Review: I LOVE HIM, I LOVE HIM NOT by Ella Martin

Title: I Love Him, I Love Him Not (Westgate Prep #2) Author: Ella Martin Genre: YA Contemporary Pages: 237 pages Publication date: September 29, 2015 Publisher: Clean Reads/Astraea Press Website: www.ella-martin.com My rating: 5 / 5

Talia Nicoletti’s life has been turned upside down–and that’s probably an understatement. Her mother goes off on a business trip… and comes back married! Her estranged father wants to be less estranged. And her best friend Jake DeSantos suddenly has a new confidante who Talia doesn’t want to like but kind of does anyway.

Talia has to unravel her tangled up emotions to figure out what she really wants. Does she want to accept her father back in her life? Can she trust her new-stepfather? There’s too much hitting Talia at once, and she’s not ready to deal with any of it. The one person she can always turn to is Jake, and he’s being secretive and isn’t exactly available. And that hurts her more than she thought possible.
Talia prides herself on keeping her emotions in check and hates that she’s jealous of the new girl in Jake’s life, especially since she can’t decide if she loves him … or if she loves him not.

I'm a sucker for a good team of characters. 

My favorite books and movies have always contained a full house of personalities, each one with different strengths, different problems, different backgrounds. When an author can deliver a book with a diverse cast of friends that are truly authentic, I can't help but fall in love with it. Which is exactly why Ella Martin's I Love Him, I Love Him Not gets a full five-star rating from me. 

A very well-deserved five-star rating.

From the very beginning of the book, we're introduced to Talia and her team of friends, Jake (her bestie), Bianca, and Ally. None of them fit into any particular box because each one of them is so wonderfully chipped and scarred by their own personal struggles. As soon as you think you have one character pegged as the "whatever" type of friend, Martin surprises you by squashing the stereotype in one single line of dialogue or mini plot twist. 

Can we say refreshing? Yes. Yes we can. And we will. 

As far as the story goes, Ella doesn't waste a single page in getting to the crux of it all. Talia's stuck in the middle of her parents' renegotiations over alimony, her father's reappearance into her life, and Jake's new crush, Clover. Because of what happened between her and her dad, Talia's got some serious trust issues, causing her to sometimes dismiss things that she sees or hears. It's frustrating because you want to reach in through the book and grab her by the shoulders, shake her, and say "Just open your eyes, Talia!" But you can't and the fact that other characters do that for you makes reading her story so worthwhile. We've all had a Talia in our lives. And thank goodness this one has some good friends to help her through her journey.

I Love Him, I Love Him Not has something for everyone. Love story? Check. Humor? Check. A ton of drama? Check. But in the end, it's the solid storytelling of a fantastic group of friends that won me over. I really hope Martin continues this series with a book centered around one of the supporting characters. Because they each deserve their own time in the spotlight. Just like this book deserves a home on your e-reader, on your shelf, and in your hands.

The incredible Ella Martin is giving away one signed poster of I Love Him, I Love Him Not to a lucky winner. The contest is open to everyone, so make sure you put in your entries as soon as possible!

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