Category: Young Adult (Page 16 of 27)

Barnes & Noble Teen Book Festival Wrap-Up

June 15, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

The Barnes & Noble B-Fest Teen Book Festival this past weekend was such a great event! So many authors I know and many of my favorites who I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting in person participated in B&N locations all across the country. I was lucky enough to be a part of the event on Sunday at the North Haven store.

The staff totally made me feel like a rock star. They were super accommodating, supportive, and helpful. My day started at noon with a book talk about ELIXIR BOUND. Anyone who knows anything about how I got started writing knows it’s a sad story about the death of my sister Kylene.

To counterbalance the sad part of my writing journey, I brought along some of my old writings (and illustrations). They included a series of picture books inspired by IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE by Laura Joffe Numeroff and illusatrated by Felicia Bond, a short novel I wrote in elementary school, a saucy journal from high school filled with stories of old boyfriends (though I didn’t share any of those stories directly!), a high school newspaper that I both wrote for and edited, and a feature from a stint working for a regional newspaper while in college.

After my talk and book signing, I had a little downtime. But I had a few friends and family that stopped by to say “Hi,” so that kept me busy while I signed stock for the store. If anyone in the area is looking for signed copies of ELIXIR BOUND, the North Haven, CT Barnes & Noble has some!

Then it was time for Tara Sullivan, author of GOLDEN BOY and THE BITTER SIDE OF SWEET, to talk about her books and writing process, which was like listening to a fascinating civics lesson on albinism and the dark truth of where chocolate comes from. Tara and I met at the NESCBWI conference earlier this spring, and it was really nice catching up with her and hearing about her books.

Finally it was time for the B-Creative event Barnes & Noble set up, which was a writing workshop about creating log lines and pitches. It was geared towards teens, but we had a few great adult participants as well. And I’m pretty sure everyone went home with a prize!

Overall a hugely successful event all around. I’m excited about doing future books events here. Did anyone else participate in the B-Fest? I’d love to hear how it went!

ELIXIR BOUND Book Signing and Teen Writing Workshop at Barnes & Noble #BFESTBUZZ

June 1, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Barnes & Noble is hosting a nationwide Teen Book Festival June 10-12 that will feature all kinds of fun activities and book signings. I’ll be at the B&N in North Haven, CT, signing and discussing my YA fantasy ELIXIR BOUND at 12:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 12. Then I’ll be sticking around for the B-Fest Teen Book Festival: B-Creative, a writing workshop for teens, at 2:00 p.m. I hope to see some local peeps there and I’m excited to meet some new readers!

For non-local peeps, there are events happening at B&N stores all over, so definitely check out your local store to see all the happenings. Also, a quick reminder that if you purchase a copy of ELIXIR BOUND and would like a signed bookplate, I’m happy to send you one. You can use the contact form on my website to let me know you want one (those go straight to my personal email). Happy reading!

(Oh, and if you’re an author and are participating in the #BFESTBUZZ, feel free to share the details of your event in the comments!)

Happy Release Day to S. Usher Evans and THE ISLAND

April 26, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

While I’m off getting ready for the 2016 New England SCBWI conference, S. Usher Evans is here to entertain you all with her new release THE ISLAND, book one of the Madion War Trilogy. Welcome, S!

TheIsland_eBook_600x900 Prince Galian is third in line to the throne, but prefers his place as a resident at the Royal Kylaen Hospital. When his father urges him to join the military to help reclaim their colony, Galian is forced to put aside his oath to Do No Harm and fight a war he does not believe in.

Across the great Madion Sea, Captain Theo Kallistrate dreams of a day when she is no longer bound by conscription to fight for her country’s independence. But when the Kylaens threaten, honor and duty call her to the front lines to fight off the oppressors.

When an air skirmish goes wrong, both Theo and Galian crash on a remote island hundreds of miles from either nation. Grievously injured, Theo must rely on Galian’s medical expertise, and Galian must rely on Theo’s survival skills, to live another day in a harsh and unforgiving terrain.

Can they put aside their differences long enough to survive? Or will the war that brought them to the island tear them apart?

Buy The Island for eBook, Paperback, and Hardcover.

SGR-Pub Paperback / Hardcover / eBook
Amazon Paperback / Hardcover / Kindle
Barnes and Noble Paperback / Hardcover
Book Depository Paperback / Hardcover
iBooks

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The Island Sneak Peek

Theo

“Yep,” he observed, with a smirk on his face. Up close, he was every bit as handsome as I’d seen in pictures. “You definitely got what you deserved. Shouldn’t have shot at me.”

“You shouldn’t have invaded my country.”

His eyes widened for a moment and I thought I’d finally done something to wipe that smile off his face. To my supreme annoyance, he tilted his head back and let out a throaty laugh.

“Oh, you are witty,” he said, nodding. “And technically right. But it wasn’t my decision. I was, as they say, just following orders.”

“And I was just following orders when I blew you out of the sky.”

“Aren’t we at an impasse then?” He seemed to be enjoying this conversation. He looked down at the side of my ship and read the inscription. “Theo, huh? Well, you must be a pretty high ranking pilot then. I hear the Ravens only allow you to put your name on your ship after you’ve survived plenty of battles.”

I moved out of anger, but the pain in my legs came roaring up my body. “Please let me die in peace,” I asked, unable to look at him.

“Oh, you aren’t going to die today. But it would probably be safer if I pulled you out. I don’t like the look of that fuel leak.”

He leaned into my small cabin. If I’d had half a mind, I could’ve snapped his neck, but it was hard enough just to breathe. He found my seat strap and unhooked it, then lifted me out by my arms. I couldn’t help but scream.

“Yeow, buddy,” he said, stopping. He put one hand over his ear and muttered. “You sure got a girly scream.”

“My legs are caught. Just leave me here. I’m as good as dead anyway.”

“Naw, then who am I going to talk to while I wait to get picked up?” He sounded like he was waiting for dinner. “C’mon, we can get you out of here. Just take a deep breath. One…two…”

I didn’t hear him count to three as he yanked my legs out of the mess and I screamed again, the pain so bad I almost lost consciousness. But, blessedly, it subsided, and the next thing I knew, he was laying me on the ground.

“There, now, Theo of Raven, let’s take a look at you,” he said, taking my helmet off.

Galian

Theo was a girl.

A pretty girl.

I’d always thought Raven women were more interesting looking than Kylaen women—with their olive skin and black hair, they seemed to draw my attention. And this girl, something about her made my head spin.

Even with her mangled, bloody legs.

They were a sight: dark red staining her gray jumpsuit.

“Thank you, Dr. Maitland,” I said, cracking open the bag he’d given me and sliding on the pair of latex gloves.

She murmured something. The amount of blood she’d lost was a real concern, and she was most likely concussed. I would worry about the head injury later; it wouldn’t matter much if she died from blood loss.

“What are you doing?” she croaked.

“Pardon the invasion of privacy,” I said, flashing her my trademark smile.

I unzipped her jumpsuit and pulled it down, exposing a white bra and underwear and nothing else. Immediately, her skin puckered with goosebumps as I tossed away the soaked dark gray suit.

“Are you still with me, Theo?”

She blinked, but didn’t respond.

“Okay, I’m going to examine you now,” I said, leaning over her bare legs. I pressed my hands to her hips, and she reacted, swiftly, sitting up so fast she nearly whacked her forehead to mine.

“Get your filthy hands off of me,” she hissed, her breath touching my face.

About the Author

View More: http://ashleyvictoriaphotography.pass.us/whitneyevans S. Usher Evans is an author, blogger, and witty banter aficionado. Born in Pensacola, Florida, she left the sleepy town behind for the fast-paced world of Washington, D.C.. There, she somehow landed jobs with BBC, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic Television before finally settling into a “real job” as an IT consultant. After a quarter life crisis at age 27, she decided consulting was for the birds and rekindled a childhood passion for writing novels. She sold everything she owned and moved back to Pensacola, where she currently resides with her two dogs, Zoe and Mr. Biscuit.

Evans is the author of the Razia series, Madion War Trilogy, and Empath, published by Sun’s Golden Ray Publishing.

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Feminism in YA Fantasy: A Study of ELIXIR BOUND #InkRipples #FemalesInYA

March 21, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

When I started writing ELIXIR BOUND many, many moons ago, I never intended to write a novel with feminist themes. I set out to write a fantasy adventure about two sisters with a structure modeled on the there-and-back-again journey of THE HOBBIT (a very non-feminist book!). Being the third of five children and a woman, it was important to me that the guardianship of the Elixir wasn’t passed down to the firstborn or a son, but I didn’t necessarily think about it in terms of feminism as I wrote the book.

It was only after I finished the first draft that I realized that I had created feminist characters, a feminist mythology, and a general feminist worldview.

At one point in an early draft, I had an older, male character–Hirsten’s father–in a brief scene question the decision to let Katora, a young woman, lead the quest to find the secret healing Elixir. He wasn’t questioning her abilities as leader, but the fact that Katora’s father was comfortable letting her venture into the dangerous Faway Forest. It stemmed from the fact that he only had male children and young women seemed a bit of a mystery to him.

I remember that as I wrote that scene, something about it wasn’t sitting well with me. I couldn’t pinpoint what the problem was until I had a whole draft, and then I quickly realized it didn’t fit in with the worldview I had created in pretty much every other aspect of the story. The world of ELIXIR BOUND wasn’t a place where the gender of a person was a reason to question whether or not they should do something. And it was only then that I was able to consciously recognize the type of world I had created.

The Greater Peninsula is ruled by Mother Nature, an unseen goddess character, whom Katora often refers to in dialogue as the “Great Mother” in way that in our world would probably be considered blasphemy (though it’s okay in her world). A young women leads the quest to find the secret ingredient for the Elixir, and the other women on the quest, though different, are certainly as worthy as any of the male characters, and believe themselves to be so. And so do the male characters…all of them (once I got rid of that rogue scene with Hirsten’s father). The external antagonist is called a witch, but she is really a minor goddess and has three male characters as her henchmen. No shortage of feminism there.

I suppose my own feminist ideas bled into the world I was creating all of their own accord. Once I was able to take a step back from the work and look at what I had done, it clicked that this was the way it was supposed to be. It’s my world, right, so why shouldn’t it have a more idealized version of women’s rights? I’m not saying it’s a perfect world or that I represent feminism in a perfect way, but it sure filled a need in me to create a world that didn’t paint someone like me in an inferior way.

I’ve read a lot of fantasy, and a whole lot of YA fantasy. Adult fantasies and their portrayal of women has generally been a disappointment; I know there are exceptions to this, but as a whole the genre is seriously lacking. There are many amazing female characters in YA fantasy, too many to list here (but for a sampling, Katsa from GRACELING, any of Tamora Pierce’s female characters, Alina from the The Grisha series, and Elisa from the Fire and Thorns series). The thing about a lot of these awesome female characters is that they often are the outliers: women doing things that men usually do or bucking against a world with inherent sexism. (Again, I recognize I’m generalizing here and that there are exceptions to this, but I’m talking about the greater picture I’ve observed in fantasy.)

So it came as a surprise to me that my world might be considered unique. I didn’t really think of it as such (I mean, everything has been done before, so I never consider anything I do as even remotely close to unique), but after thinking about it and noticing the trends in what I’ve read, I was like, “Huh. Maybe I’ve got something slightly out of the norm here.”

Then I thought, “Well, isn’t that kind of sad.” Even in our imaginary worlds, we can’t seem to break out of the sexist mold that we are pegged into in our real world. Even when we have dynamic, interesting female characters that pass the Bechdel Test, we too often put them in a patriarchal world, or worse a sexist one, or worst one that normalizes violence against women. (Seriously, just Google “sexism and fantasy” for a whole slew of articles about the topic.)

I’d love to read more fantasy books with a feminist outlook and not just the so-called “strong” female characters. So please throw some recommendations out there, and we can work on bringing more attention to fantasy books with feminist worlds.

#InkRipples is a monthly meme created by Katie L. Carroll, Mary Waibel, and Kai Strand. We pick a topic (there’s still time to add to the March topic of feminism), drop a ripple in the inkwell (i.e. write about it on our blogs), and see where the conversation goes. Be sure to check out Kai’s and Mary’s posts this month. We’d love to have you join in the conversation on your own blogs. Full details and each month’s topic can be found on my #InkRipples page.

Interview with Kai Strand Author of FINDING THOR

March 14, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

Have you found your Thor? Kai Strand wants to help with that. She’s here to talk about her young adult romantic suspense, FINDING THOR. Be sure to check out the giveaway below.

International intrigue hits small-town America.

Tragedy has left Cara Cassidy broken and the only thing keeping her from giving in completely is her guilt. Until Nik Rock.

Nik stirs up feelings in degrees she has never experienced, and causes her to do things that most assuredly give him the wrong impression – like kiss him before their first date. Somehow, he breaks down the walls around her emotions until she has no choice but to forgive herself and feel again.

But a mysterious, troubled past follows Nik, and Cara may prove to be his weakest link.

When a royal princess shows up looking for Nik, and an international gang arrives looking for missing jewels, Cara lands in mortal danger. Will she be able to save herself? What will happen to her newly repaired psyche if she loses Nik?

Romance, mystery, and high stakes – just another day in high school.

Hi, Kai! Why should we read your book?

How long can you hold your breath? Finding Thor is non-stop, action, emotion, mystery, and intrigue.

If you could live inside a book, which book would you chose?

I feel like I’m cheating on this because Finding Thor is set in my current hometown, so I’d just stay right where I am now.

Is there a lesson to be learned in Finding Thor?

I don’t set out to teach a lesson when I’m writing a story, but one thing I hope resonates with readers is Cara’s personal struggle. She’s grieving. She has ups and downs. Even when she starts to make progress toward healing, she has setbacks. This is normal. People don’t have these perfect paths to follow. Life is messy. However, when the chips are down, she identifies what’s important to her and she digs deep inside her for the strength to fight for it.

Excerpt:

The veil dropped over Nik’s expression so fast, it told her exactly what she didn’t want to know. Nik had indeed seen her mom. Cara turned away from him again intending to trudge back into the classroom.

“By the crown, will you stop already?” Nik begged.

The exasperation in his tone and the odd choice of words piqued her curiosity. Cocking her head, she asked, “By the crown?”

The frustration melted away and Nik pursed his lips, which almost distracted Cara enough to forget the thread of conversation, but she tore her eyes away and asked, “Is that what they say in Seattle?”

Nik’s eyes lit with appreciation. “Aren’t you clever?”

“Am I?”

He nodded. His appreciative appraisal and half smile wreaked havoc with her supposed cleverness.

“Nik?” she breathed.

“Yes?” He tilted toward her giving her the impression he hung on her every word. His eyes were glued to her lips, which she realized were parted and ever so slightly panting.

She gulped. “Can we perhaps do this after school?”

When he raised his gaze to meet hers she almost liquefied under the heat of it. “Can I trust you?”

“Trust me to do what?” Cara asked. She was losing the ability to think.

“Show up.” He slid closer and she held her breath hoping he would take her in his arms.

“Show up where?” she asked.

A full-blown grin curved across his face and she thrilled with the knowledge she’d put it there. Then she realized she couldn’t remember how.

“Actually, I was going to ask you that,” Nik said. His eyes roved her face.

“Wait. What?” Cara’s voice was so breathy she wasn’t sure if she spoke or gasped.

“Where should we meet? After school.”

She itched to rise up on tiptoe and kiss that stellar grin off his mouth.

A low chuckle rumbled through him. “Why don’t you tell me in gym class?”

She nodded slowly. Was he a drug? Or maybe the male version of a siren. Did they have those?

He tipped further forward and she caught her breath. Then he sighed.

“See you next period.”

Her mouth fell open as he walked away. He hadn’t even touched her and she was burning with need.

At the end of the hall, he glanced over his shoulder and grinned when he saw her still gaping after him. When he walked out of view she let out the breath she’d been holding. It stuttered and shook, but was relieved to escape her burning lungs. How long had she been holding her breath?

By the crown, Nik Rock was dangerous!

Finding Thor is available in print or electronic format from the following:

Add Finding Thor to your to-read shelf on Goodreads

About the author:

When her children were young and the electricity winked out, Kai Strand gathered her family around the fireplace and they told stories, one sentence at a time. Her boys were rather fond of the ending, “And then everybody died. The end.” Now an award winning children’s author, Kai crafts fiction for kids and teens to provide an escape hatch from their reality. With a selection of novels for young adult and middle grade readers Kai entertains children of all ages, and their adults. Learn more about Kai and her books on her website, www.kaistrand.com.

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Swag alert! Looking for your Thor? Look no further, Kai’s got you covered. Enter to win a custom tote bag for all of those books you like to carry with you, and a Thor baseball cap. Easy entry for those in a hurry, or many other ways to earn more entries for contest junkies. FT swag pack can only be shipped in the United States. If first winner is International, an Amazon gift card will be substituted and another winner will be chosen.