Beautifully Constructed // Home, Perilous Home (ReMade Season 1 Episode 3) by Carrie Harris



Home, Perilous Home (ReMade #1.3)
Title: Home, Perilous Home (ReMade Season 1 Episode 3)
Author: Carrie Harris
Publication Date: September 28th 2016
Publisher: Serial Box Publishing
Part of a Series?: Yes, Episode 3/15 of ReMade Season 1
I Got A Copy Through: The Publisher (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Episodes are available in text and audio and can be enjoyed through the Serial Box App, at SerialBox.com, or wherever eBooks are sold.
Blurb Description:You live. You love. You die. Now RUN.
Every minute, 108 people die. On October 14th, 2016, from 9:31-9:32 p.m. EDT, 23 of those deaths will be teenagers. Now they are humanity’s last hope for survival. Awakened in a world they barely recognize and hunted by mechanical horrors, these teens search for answers amidst the ruins of civilization. Fate, love, and loyalty face off in this adrenaline -pumping YA adventure.    Team-written by some of today’s most popular YA authors, ReMade is brought to you by Matthew Cody (Super), Andrea Phillips (Revision), Kiersten White (And I Darken), Gwenda Bond (Girl on a Wire), Carrie Harris (Bad Taste in Boys), and E. C. Myers (The Silence of Six).
Waking up in a strange and scary new world isn’t necessarily the worst thing, especially when you are grateful to wake up at all. When Nevaeh opened her eyes to find no hospital bed, IV drips, or cancer riddling her body she counted her blessings and sang for joy – happy to face the deadly jungle, killer robots, and (if she’s honest, perhaps the most disheartening) disgruntled companions. They say smiling is the best medicine, but does it still work after death?

This episode written by Carrie Harris.
 
 Season One will unfold across 15 episodes beginning September 14th, with a new installment dropping every Wednesday until the season finale on December 21st. Jump into this digital serial, available in both text and audio, and find out what the future of fiction holds.


Before you start this review, you should download you FREE copy of Book One in this AWESOME season here.
Or, you can read my review of Episode 1, Shadows and Dreams, written by Matthew Cody here and Episode two, Hungry by Andrea Philips here.

Do you know that feeling you get when you meet an old friend, or get back into an old book?

That warm feeling filled with comfort and excitement?

That is what opening every episode in ReMade feels like; like I’m going back to something familiar and lovely.

Despite that these episodes are never longer that fifty pages, each author (and the story) has the ability to pull you in, show you the world in another, completely different person’s point of view, learn something about the ReMade world, and give you a plethora of new questions!

In the first episode, Shadows and Dreams, we see what all the ‘ReMade’ children experience on the space shuttle. They are plagued by dreams of mechanical spiders and pain, are woken up in a leaking room, found by a lady named Umta, joined by two to three others and sent down from space, to the planet below them.

In the second, Hungry, we hear from an overachiever who has gotten stuck in this warped reality about how the teenagers are surviving in this unfamiliar environment, how they got there and about how all their flaws (like allergies or bad vision) have been eliminated by the caretakers in the space station, making them ReMade.

Which brings us to episode three, which is told from another point of view. Nevaeh is happy to be here. She’s probably the only one, but the feeling of being healthy, the smell of anything other than hospital disinfectant and the feel of the sun on her face are all things she can’t help but being happy about. Not letting her die is the greatest gift the caretakers could have given her.

As she helps with the effort of making a home on this clearing in the forest, Home Perilous Home takes us deeper into who all the characters are, and gives you a clearer picture of what the world is now like.

I love getting into the heads of such different characters – it makes me feel like I really know them, and then seeing them after from someone else’s perspective is EVEN MORE REFRESHING.

AND THAT ENDING, GAAH.

ReMade is a beautifully constructed series that has the ability to make you fall in love, even with a thousand questions on your mind! 5 stars!

 ReMade is a serial presented episodically in 15 parts by Serial Box Publishing.

In one moment the lives of twenty-three teenagers are forever changed, and it’s not just because they all happen to die.  Remade in a world they barely recognize – one with robots, space elevators, and unchecked jungle – they must work together to solve the mystery and stay alive. They came from different places, backgrounds, and families, and now they are our only hope. Lost meets The Maze Runner in this thrilling serial that combines contemporary YA with classic Science Fiction to fling you headfirst into adventure.
Carrie Harris was born in Chicago but if you ask her, she’ll say she’s from Ohio. Her interests include English Literature, brains, and hot geek boys. She has held a string of very incongruous jobs but in between autopsies and studying mad cows, she wrote for various tabletop roleplaying games and textbook companies. These days she writes books for teens, tweens, and adults while also being the Marketing Director for Evil Hat Productions. Her published works include Bad Taste in Boys, and Demon Derby. CarrieHarrisBooks.com. @CarrHarr.
Serial Box produces and publishes fiction serials, blending story production and distribution practices from television, book publishing and narrative podcasting. These team-written original serials span a range of genres including sci fi / fantasy, espionage, contemporary and historical drama, post-apocalyptic, etc. Serial Box delivers episodes to fans’ digital devices every Wednesday over the course of 13-16 week seasons. Each episode is available in ebook and audio and takes about 40 minutes to enjoy. Learn more at Serial Box.com. Follow us on TwitterInstagramFacebook, and our blog
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Have you heard of Serial Box Publishing? What do you think of Episode Books, and would you read them? 
What do you think of ReMade? 
I think this is all SO COOL, and I'm dying for more!

A Deep, Different Novel // Mornings After by Tharun James Jimani

Title: Mornings After
Author: Tharun James Jimani
Publication Date: August 23rd 2016
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Part of a Series?: No, A Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: Bloomsbury India (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Flipkart || Infibeam || 
Blurb Description: On the morning India woke up to the news of the gruesome assault on Nirbhaya, Sonya lay awake coming to terms with a nightmare of her own: If you place your safety in the hands of another, who is to blame for its consequences? Incited by the media post mortem of Nirbhaya that followed, Sonya gives up the security of corporate life and starts a feminist webzine instead. 
When a Bollywood matinee idol –‘Bhai’ to his devotees, and simply ‘The Torso’ to the media – expresses interest in promoting the launch of Sonya’s publication in exchange for a little whitewashing of his latest misogynist transgression, she is faced with the age-old question of just how far can one go till the end stops justifying the means? Thomas, her lover of a mere couple of months, suddenly burdened with contributing to food and lodging and Sonya, unable to apply her political stand to their abusive relationship, negotiate the fluidity and chaos of contemporary urban relationships in ways both familiar and unique. 

It’s really hard to find the right words to describe something out of the box.

It’s also really hard to describe something in a couple hundred words, when you needed to pause on every section of that something to soak it all in.

And by really hard, I mean I’m not sure I can quite capture the essence of Mornings After and deliver it to you, but I’m going to try.

I could give you just three words to describe this novel: intricate, intimate and highly introspective. 

Mornings After is a beautiful piece of literature that takes you deep into the minds of a couple in love, and helps you unravel the threads of thought and the mess of emotions in a highly modernized, free spirited world.


Truth be told, I was already sold when I heard this book was about sexual fluidity, rape and navigating modern relationships, I just didn’t expect Mornings After to also be a journey of two souls, learning to grow up and grow together, to fall in and out of love and most of all, to discover themselves.

Mornings After is a documentation of two souls in Bombay, India, that happened to run into each other. Sonya is a Business School graduate working a standard nine to five job, while Thomas is looking for inspiration. They’re different, and yet, it’s the Potential that attracts them to one another.

As they get to know each other, their relationship becomes something more meaningful and something more toxic, as only the people closest to us have the power to tear us down. They try and see if one will fit in the other’s pre-existing world and also if they can create a new one of their own together.

Then, the rape case that shook India, the Nirbhaya rape case, where a young medical student was brutally gang raped in a moving bus in New Delhi, and her friend severely beaten up as well, just as Sonya has a similar incident of her own sets in motion the need to quit her day job, and just Make a Difference.

Told with a beautiful writing style that I’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing before, Mornings After is all about modern relationships, and modern people – how they think, how they live, how they survive – and is also all about getting to know another person intimately. It’s about having the courage to do your own thing, to show the world who you really are, are learning every time you fall.

A Deep, Different Novel that you should be reading.

4 stars.
What was the last contemporary book you read? 

Do you have any recommendations for me that explore the themes that Mornings After does? I would LOVE to check them out. 

If you're looking for something YA, not Adult, I would recommend Louise O'Neill's Asking For It! 

A Graceful Masterpiece // Tiny Pretty Things by Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra

Title: Tiny Pretty Things (Tiny Pretty Things #1)
Authors: Dhonielle Clayton and Sona Charaipotra
Publication Date: July 12th 2016
Publisher: Harper Teen
Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 1/2 of Tiny Pretty Things
I Got A Copy Through: Harper Collins India (THANK YOU!)
Blurb Description: Black Swan meets Pretty Little Liars in this soapy, drama-packed novel featuring diverse characters who will do anything to be the prima at their elite ballet school.
Gigi, Bette, and June, three top students at an exclusive Manhattan ballet school, have seen their fair share of drama. Free-spirited new girl Gigi just wants to dance—but the very act might kill her. Privileged New Yorker Bette's desire to escape the shadow of her ballet-star sister brings out a dangerous edge in her. And perfectionist June needs to land a lead role this year or her controlling mother will put an end to her dancing dreams forever.
When every dancer is both friend and foe, the girls will sacrifice, manipulate, and backstab to be the best of the best. 


They say that you see who people really are at the worst of times.

They say that you find out who your real friends are when you’re at the lowest of the low.

So, what if you’re there; what if you’re drowning, but there’s nobody to save you?

Tiny Pretty Things is a BEAUTIFULLY written, intense novel into the minds of three girls in a cutthroat ballet setting that will haunt you long after you’ve put it down.

Bette Abney has been the star all her life. When she was five, her mother moved her into the American Ballet Conservatory and she’s stayed ever since. All she wants is to ‘luminous’ like her sister Adele, land the roll of the Sugar Plum Fairy that was rightfully hers and remain the ballet IT couple with her boyfriend, Alec.
June is and has always been second best; the understudy, always. Being Korean-American, she can’t help but agree to her mother’s deal – get an actual role in a ballet within the year and she can stay on, or her ballet aspirations will be as extinct as dinosaurs.

Giselle Stewart is the new girl. One of the only dark skinned girls in a sea of white, Giselle isn’t like the other conservatory girls, and she was nowhere near prepared for the pure, unfiltered competition and animosity between the girls she spends her whole life with. After she gets cast in the lead role, displacing all the other hopefuls, it’s all she can do not to crack under the pressure.
I honestly first heard about this book when my friend Rhea D’Souza recommended it to me, and I bought the Kindle version, but never got around to read it. (YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES, RIGHT?) And then this beautiful book showed up on the Harper Collins catalogue, and I IMMEDIATELY asked for a review copy, and the awesome folks over at HC India obliged.

Apart from the triple perspectives of Bette, June and Gigi, there are SO MANY other WONDERFULLY COMPLICATED and FLAWED characters at the American Ballet Conservatory like Will, Eleanor, Cassie, Henri, Alec, Mr.K, Sei-Jin and others that the protagonists make you fall in love with, envy and hate at the same time.
Truth be told, I simply didn’t expect it to be THIS GREAT, and I didn’t expect myself to have fallen SO IN LOVE with this world and these characters.

There’s something so utterly raw about the authors’ writing that I felt like I KNEW these three girls better than I even myself knew. Their deepest fears, their shortcomings, their jealousy, their happy moments and the silly things they believed in WERE ALL SO WELL DONE.

Intense, nerve-racking and BEAUTIFUL, Tiny Pretty Things is a true masterpiece, that far surpasses any other ballet book out there.

SOMEONE GIVE ME THE SEQUEL.

ALL THE STARS.
What is the best ballet book or movie you've read or watched? Do you like ballet?

Have you read Tiny Pretty Things? I would definitely recommend it, even if you aren't a ballet fan, because it is BEAUTIFUL.

Seriously Intriguing // Hungry by Andrea Philips (ReMads Season 1 Episode 2) + GIVEAWAY!

Title: Hungry (ReMade Season 1 Episode 2)
Author: Andrea Philips
Publication Date: September 21st 2016
Publisher: Serial Box Publishing
Part of a Series?: Yes, Episode 2/15 of ReMade Season 1
I Got A Copy Through: The Publisher (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Episodes are available in text and audio and can be enjoyed through the Serial Box App, at SerialBox.com, or wherever eBooks are sold.
Blurb Description:You live. You love. You die. Now RUN.
Every minute, 108 people die. On October 14th, 2016, from 9:31-9:32 p.m. EDT, 23 of those deaths will be teenagers. Now they are humanity’s last hope for survival. Awakened in a world they barely recognize and hunted by mechanical horrors, these teens search for answers amidst the ruins of civilization. Fate, love, and loyalty face off in this adrenaline -pumping YA adventure.    Team-written by some of today’s most popular YA authors, ReMade is brought to you by Matthew Cody (Super), Andrea Phillips (Revision), Kiersten White (And I Darken), Gwenda Bond (Girl on a Wire), Carrie Harris (Bad Taste in Boys), and E. C. Myers (The Silence of Six).
May likes being in control: with an obsessive drive to succeed and her aim set on Harvard, she knows how to keep her life on course. Plucked from her whirlwind of tests and achievement charts, and dropped into a world where civilization itself has crumbled, she wants more than just answers. But living with deadly allergies means you’re always on the razor edge – one peanut, one bee sting, one toe out of line could be your downfall, and nobody wants to die twice.
This episode written by Andrea Phillips. 
 
 Season One will unfold across 15 episodes beginning September 14th, with a new installment dropping every Wednesday until the season finale on December 21st. Jump into this digital serial, available in both text and audio, and find out what the future of fiction holds.


Before you start this review, you should download you FREE copy of Book One in this AWESOME season here.

Or, you can read my review of Episode 1, Shadows and Dreams, written by Matthew Cody here.

While I wasn’t entirely sold on this series after episode 1, this pretty much sealed the deal for me.

Hungry, the second episode in the first season of ReMade introduces you to other characters that were already on Earth as Holden and Seyah make their way down in the space pod.

All around them, people were woken up from dreams of pain and torture, were found by a hairy caretaker, Umta, and then thrown into a pod that needed human activation, only to realize that they were in SPACE and making their way down to earth.

But is it even Earth at all?

And the last thing everyone remembers from their normal lives is dying.

Armed with basically no knowledge about where they are or how they got here, the teenagers need to learn to survive in an environment where they know nothing.

Hungry is a lot more fast paced, and even more adrenaline filled than Shadows and Dreams, mostly because it is putting a few things together, all while introducing you to a whole new set of interesting characters, and sets the pace up for the next thirteen episodes.

Told in over-achiever May’s viewpoint, we find out a little about what the “caretakers” did to the characters up there, and also receive a backstory of who May was, before she was ReMade.
The entire episode felt very Maze-Runner like and I LOVED IT.

So, for any dystopian fan looking for something new, you should check ReMade out!

4.5 stars!

 ReMade is a serial presented episodically in 15 parts by Serial Box Publishing.


In one moment the lives of twenty-three teenagers are forever changed, and it’s not just because they all happen to die.  Remade in a world they barely recognize – one with robots, space elevators, and unchecked jungle – they must work together to solve the mystery and stay alive. They came from different places, backgrounds, and families, and now they are our only hope. Lost meets The Maze Runner in this thrilling serial that combines contemporary YA with classic Science Fiction to fling you headfirst into adventure.
Andrea Phillips is a transmedia writer, game designer and author. She is on the writing team for season 2 of the urban fantasy serial Bookburners as well as ReMade. Her debut novel is Revision, an SF thriller about a wiki where your edits come true. She has also worked on iOS fitness games Zombies, Run! and The Walk; The Maester's Path for HBO's Game of Thrones; human rights game America 2049; and the independent commercial ARG Perplex City. She also writes an ongoing column about video games called Metagames for Strange Horizons. Her nonfiction book A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling is used to teach digital storytelling at universities around the world.
Serial Box produces and publishes fiction serials, blending story production and distribution practices from television, book publishing and narrative podcasting. These team-written original serials span a range of genres including sci fi / fantasy, espionage, contemporary and historical drama, post-apocalyptic, etc. Serial Box delivers episodes to fans’ digital devices every Wednesday over the course of 13-16 week seasons. Each episode is available in ebook and audio and takes about 40 minutes to enjoy. Learn more at Serial Box.com. Follow us on TwitterInstagramFacebook, and our blog
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Have you heard of Serial Box Publishing? What do you think of Episode Books, and would you read them? 
What do you think of ReMade? 
I think this is all SO COOL, and I'm dying for more!

Rhian Ivory - YA Shot Blog Tour 2016

The AMAZING ladies in-charge of putting together the awesome-ness that is YA Shot 2016 gave me a spot on the blog tour, and the opportunity to host the INCREDIBLE Rhian Ivory!

WHAT IS YA SHOT?
YA Shot is an author-run, author-led Young Adult and Middle Grade festival that raises the money and resources to run a year-long programme pairing libraries and schools for free author events to foster a love of reading, inspire a passion for writing, and encourage aspirations to careers in the Arts. We believe in equal access to books and opportunities for all – YA Shot brings UKYA and UKMG authors together to pursue that goal, supporting libraries and young people across the country. At present, we’re a not-for-profit organisation but we’re seeking to become a charity.

And now, here is an interview and a giveaway from the AWESOME Rhian Ivory!



1) 5 things your dream home would need to contain:

1. A wild flower garden that overlooks the sea with a few good climbing trees scattered around and a tall enough tree for me to hang a swing from.
2. A library to house all my books with a secret door leading to a tunnel which comes out onto a private beach.
3. An endless supply of red fizzy laces.
4. A massive bath with a reading shelf.
5. A huge attic full of unopened boxes, suitcases and trunks that my ancestors have left  full of secrets and stories for me to discover.

2) This or That 

-- Italian or Chinese Food

-Both? If I had to choose I think I'd go for Chinese with a definite order of seaweed.

--Contemporary or Fantasy
- Contemporary.

And now, moving on to Masterpiece:

3)What inspired you to write The Boy Who Drew The Future?

I had a dream one night in which I saw a boy drawing someone's future. It was a gory and grisly future and the boy didn't want to draw it. I remember telling myself to remember my dream, that this was a really interesting idea. I didn't remember it until much later that day when someone 'broke' my dream. I ran upstairs and wrote down the scene I'd dreamed and then had to work all the way back to the beginning of Noah's story and discover how he came to be a boy who could draw futures.

4)Tell us about the day you found out you were getting published?

I was standing in my kitchen - we had recently moved out of the caravan on the drive where we'd be living while we renovated our house so standing in a kitchen was quite a luxury - and the offer from one of the publishers interested came through. I didn't know which publisher it would be until I opened the email. Then I jumped up and down and punched the air a few times and shouted out my news to the whole family.

5) If you could give one piece of advice to your main characters, what would it be?
I'd tell Noah to trust himself more, to trust his instincts and not fight his gift but learn to work with it.
Title: The Boy Who Drew The Future
Author: Rhian Ivory
Publication Date: August 17th 2017
Publisher: Firefly Press
Part of a Series?: Nope, A Standalone
Buy Links: Amazon UK || The Book Depository || Wordery || Barnes and Noble
Blurb Description: Noah and Blaze live in the same village over 100 years apart. But the two teenage boys are linked by a river and a strange gift: they both compulsively draw images they don’t understand, that later come true. They can draw the future.
1860s – Blaze is alone after his mother’s death, dependent on the kindness of the villagers, who all distrust his gift as witchcraft but still want him to predict the future for them. When they don’t like what he draws, life gets very dangerous for him.
Now – Noah comes to the village for a new start. His parents are desperate for him to be ‘normal’ after all the trouble they've had in the past. He makes a friend, Beth, but as with Blaze the strangeness of his drawings start to turn people against him and things get very threatening. Will he be driven away from this new home – and from Beth?
Will both boys be destroyed by their strange gift, or can a new future be drawn?

Rhian was born in Swansea but moved to the Brecon Beacons where she went to school until 11. She then moved all the way across the border to Hereford. She returned to Wales to study English Literature at Aberystwyth. She trained as a Drama and English teacher and wrote her first novel during her first few years in teaching.
The Boy who drew the Future is her fifth novel and she’s recently finished writing her sixth. She is a National Trust writer in residence at Sudbury Hall and the Museum of Childhood.  She currently lives in Rutland, the smallest county in the country, with her family and their two very lively spaniels. 

You can follow Rhian on twitter on @Rhian_Ivory and on Facebook.

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BLOG TOUR: Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Masiculo - Review + Favourite Quotes


Title: Stalking Jack The Ripper
Author: Kerri Maniscale
Publication Date: September 20th 2016
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson Books
Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 1 of the Stalking Jack The Ripper Series.
I Got A Copy Through: Jimmy Patterson via NetGalley!
Buy Links: Amazon || Barnes and Noble || iBooks || Kobo || The Book Depository || Wordery
Blurb Description: He’s the infamous killer no man has ever been able to find.
Now it’s a girl’s turn.
Groomed to be the perfect highborn Victorian young lady, Audrey Rose Wadsworth has a decidedly different plan for herself. After the loss of her beloved mother, she is determined to understand the nature of death and its workings. Trading in her embroidery needle for an autopsy scalpel, Audrey secretly apprentices in forensics. She soon gets drawn into the investigation of serial killer Jack the Ripper, but to her horror, the search for clues brings her far closer to her sheltered world than she ever thought possible.

If I’m being entirely honest, there were three things that made me want to read the Stalking Jack the Ripper:

1)      THAT GORGEOUS COVER (!)
2)      The Title (HOW CATCHY IS THAT)
3)      (Surprisingly, most of all) THE HYPE!


I loved that everybody I knew was raving about HOW GREAT this book was, and I NEEDED to read it for myself.
And while it isn’t the best book out there, it was still REALLY REALLY GOOD.

Since this is a murder mystery/ historical romance, I’m just going to keep the storyline to myself, but there are still some parts I NEED to talk about.

1.       Audrey Rose Wadsworth: Set in 1888, THIS GIRL IS SUCH A FEMINIST, I WANTED TO CRY. Here are some awesome quotes for you:
“I didn’t see any men running about, birthing the world’s population then going to make supper and tend to the house. Most of them buckled to their knees when the slightest sniffle attacked them.”
OR:
“Why must I either be docile and decent, or curious and wretched? I was a decent girl, even if I spent my spare time reading about science theories and dissecting the dead.”
SEE? She would give 21st century women a run for their money.

2.       The Sherlock/ Watson Dynamo: Another thing that this book contained was the “I hate you so much, I might just love you” romance plot arc, and it was very endearing. MORE THAN THAT, Thomas Creswell and Audrey Rose had a Sherlock and Watson deduction game going on at all times, and their combined intellect made this all the more interesting.
“Thomas’s attention snagged onto mine. ‘Are you suggesting we stage a murder, Wadsworth? You planning on doing the slashing or should I handle that part?”
3.       ALL THINGS INDIAN: Audrey’s deceased mother was half Indian, and I loved that there were ACCURATE references to Indian food and culture bring made. There was also a circus scene that I ADORED.

Unfortunately, there were also some things that I didn’t like:

1.       Dialogue that was trying too hard: In some instances, the dialogue came off as forced, but QUOTES ARE SUBJECT TO MY ARC, so:
“I couldn’t imagine ever hating my brother that much and pitied them both for their animosity.”
2.       The SUSPECTING game: This was fairly weak in the book, as Thomas and Audrey Rose placed all their suspicions on a particular person with something that could be NOTHING MORE that pure coincidence. And since there was a Sherlock-y vibe coming off the book, I just thought that a proper mental accusation should be fool proof.

All in all, a WONDERFUL book for the feminists out there.


3.5 stars!
Kerri Maniscalco grew up in a semi-haunted house outside NYC where her fascination with gothic settings began. In her spare time she reads everything she can get her hands on, cooks all kinds of food with her family and friends, and drinks entirely too much tea while discussing life’s finer points with her cats. Stalking Jack the Ripper is her debut novel. It incorporates her love of forensic science and unsolved history, and is the first in a new series of gothic thrillers.

It will be available everywhere September 20, 2016.