Ruby's Fire - A Dystopian Giveaway

Announcing Ruby's Fire (plus giveaway!)

Join the giveaway of a signed print edition or Kindle copy by signing up for Catherine Stine's newsletter at this link and stating you have done so in the comments below. Don't forget to leave me your contact email as well! I'll choose one winner by random drawing and announce it on my blog. 

You can also enter Catherine's own Rafflecopter drawing on the sidebar. 

When I read Fireseed One, I was blown away by the concepts and worldbuilding, handled expertly by my friend and fellow author, Catherine Stine. I couldn't wait to read the sequel, and at last it is here in my hot little hands: Ruby's Fire is available for purchase as e-book and print. 
I'm a fiend for dystopian books: Hunger Games, Wool, and now this series. The scorched earth is described and illustrated perfectly, but more importantly the characters are living, breathing beings. I deeply cared what happened to Varik and Marisa, and now I know I'm going to love Ruby.

Author's illustration from Fireseed One

Here, then, is an excerpt from Ruby's Fire:
This excerpt comes shortly after Ruby escapes a dangerous desert cult armed only with a pouch of her handmade elixir, Oblivion, and her little brother Thorn. They land in a boarding school for nomadic teens, where she’s ensconced in classmate, Bea’s room.

I crawl into bed exhausted in a good way. I’ve eaten, I’ve gotten exercise, and I’ve managed to fend off Blane. I’ve checked on Thorn and Radius seems to be leaving him alone. Bea hasn’t said anything truly nasty to me today, though she’s rolled toward the wall again without a word. Now she’s breathing steadily with a soft snore.

Progress, I may not even need Oblivion tonight.

But as I lay there, staring out at the orange-streaked sky and the distant, blinking stars, my mind sinks to a dreadful reverie. I’m standing in front of the garden shelf where the red leaves are trapped under those wide stones. The Fireseed seems to be emitting a high-pitched wail. Blane is there too and he’s pressing his face into mine, his lips biting at my own lips. His meaty arms trap me. He shoves me down on top of Fireseed stalks that crack and split, sending out more high-pitched whees. As Blane’s weight pushes hard against my chest, his face becomes Stiles’—the flared nostrils, bloodshot eyes and accusing stare. “You are mine,” Stiles says. “How dare you…”

I bolt upright, sending such a flurry of fearful energy into the air that Bea chokes in her sleep. Coughing, she turns my way and returns to her steady breathing.

Her eyes could snap open at any second. She could steal my bag of Oblivion or knock it from my hands, scattering the powder over the floor. It would be lost forever. I hold my breath as I pad across the room, reach for the velvety sack in my cloak and feel the reassuring give of the powder. It’s diminishing with every dose, and I won’t be able to make more here. I need to ration it carefully. My heart hammering, I flutter into the bathroom, inch open the drawstring and shake a line onto my wrist. I inhale greedily, desperately.

Stumbling back to bed, there’s only enough time to thrust the precious bag inside my pillowcase before sweat erupts on my upper lip and my eyes roll up.

Then I bump off swollen ridges of pain as I fall deeply into never.

 

The author

 If everything about you changes, what remains?

Seventeen year-old Ruby, long-pledged to the much older Stiles from the Fireseed desert cult, escapes with only a change of clothes, a pouch of Oblivion Powder and her mute little brother, Thorn. Arriving at The Greening, a boarding school for orphaned teens, she can finally stop running. Or can she? The Greening is not what it seems. Students are rampaging out of control and as she cares for the secret Fireseed crop, she experiences frightening physical changes. She’s ashamed of her attraction to burly, hard-talking Blane, the resident bodyguard, and wonders why she can’t be happy with the gentler Armonk. She’s long considered her great beauty a liability, a thing she’s misused in order to survive. And how is she to stop her dependence on Oblivion to find a real beauty within, using her talent as a maker of salves, when she has nightmares of Stiles without it?

When George Axiom, wealthy mogul of Vegas-by-the-Sea offers a huge cash prize for the winner of a student contest, Ruby is hopeful she might collect the prize to rescue her family and friends from what she now knows is a dangerous cult. But when Stiles comes to reclaim her, and Thorn sickens after creating the most astonishing contest project of all, the world Ruby knows is changed forever. This romantic fantasy set in 2099 on earth has a crafty heroine in Ruby, and a swoonworthy cast, which will surely appeal to the YA and new adult audience.

Catherine Stine writes YA, New Adult and middle grade fiction. Her YA futuristic thriller, Fireseed One, illustrated by the author won finalist spots in both YA and Science Fiction in the 2013 USA Book News International Book Awards. It was also granted a 2013 Bronze Wishing Shelf Book Award and a 2013 Indie Reader Approved notable stamp. Her YA Refugees, earned a New York Public Library Best Book. Middle grade novels include A Girl’s Best Friend.

Fireseed One sequel, Ruby’s Fire is earning advance praise from reviewers and authors:

“Ruby's Fire returns to the sun-scorched earth of Fireseed One. In this long-awaited sequel, Stine delivers a thrilling adventure led by a new and exciting cast of characters. Ruby, Armonk, Thorn and Blane are memorable, and the romance is really well handled. Favorite quote: " It feels wrong to lean on Armonk right now with Blane staring at me, a hungry, lonely look in his eye. It’s as if he’s never been hugged, never been fed, never been loved..." ”  -YAs the Word

More and more, Catherine enjoys writing speculative tales where her imagination has wild and free reign. She has taught creative writing workshops at the Philadelphia Writing Conference, Missouri University Summer Abroad, The New School and in her own ongoing NYC writing workshop. She loves her readers, and enjoys blogging.

You can also find Ruby's Fire on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, and as an illustrated paperback.

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Review : Wool, by Hugh Howey

Hugh Howey originally released Wool as a series of installments, and I can see why the book soared to the top of the charts on Amazon. As well as having what I call “the elusive compulsion factor,” it is written with a gritty realism that mirrors the subject perfectly.

It’s the story of a post-apocalyptic world, where poisonous winds scour the landscape aboveground on Earth; people live an underground silo that extends down for over one hundred stories. 

Couples must wait for someone’s death for a ticket to try for a child; every few years there is a Cleaning, when someone leaves the Silo to go outside and clean the windows, either voluntarily or under punishment. They never return.

Wool begins with a cleaning, as Holston volunteers to go outside a year after his wife made the same request. This sets into action a series of events that end up affecting every story of the Silo and beyond.

The first section is called Holston, and it is all about his experience. The following parts are named after actions and concepts in knitting: Proper Gauge, Casting Off, Unraveling, and feature other characters. 

First up is Jahns, the Mayor of the silo, and it concentrates on her relationship with Marnes, a police officer, as they go to find a replacement for Holston. Their journey to the bottom of the silo introduces other factions in a nice, geographic outline. I felt as I read Proper Gauge I was descending with Jahns and Marnes to the lower section of the silo, meeting IT and Mechanical along the way.

IT holds Bernard, who is unlikeable from the start. Mechanical is the setting for Juliette, or Jules, and she is extremely likeable. In fact, she’s one of the most original characters I’ve met in science fiction.

All the characters interact in a very original, organic way. As an author, I marveled at Howey’s prowess at herding people from one section to another – this can be a very onerous, exhausting task at times. He manages it without any deus ex machina; as the book progressed, I really felt I was living in the Silo.

The book reminded me of the best of Verne and Wells. The gears and engines are described so perfectly, it’s no surprise to learn that Howey worked as a mechanic on ship, servicing engines that were almost as large as the ones Jules works on in Mechanical.

Meanwhile, there is the rise of Bernard, who acquires more and more power and determines to keep Jules from the upper floors of the Silo. Jules herself is perfect – she’s strong and still feminine, but most of all she is incredibly intelligent. I love the way she negotiates her adventures and challenges in the Silo and out of it.

I read a lot of comments on Goodreads and Amazon that the book shouldn’t have been called Wool. I think there is a definite reason for the title beyond the chapter headings which I won’t mention since it is a major spoiler, but feel free to message me and we can chat about it, if you have read the book.

Finally, Wool appealed to me as a grown-up, neater version of Hunger Games or Divergent. The writing is very simple – and it is in the past tense and third person, hurray! There are no instances of “I go to the mirror and look at my too-big eyes…” – a major turn-off for this reader. 

Not only that, but the plot structure is also very simple – much like the spiral staircase that supports the Silo – simple, but very clever. From that structure, a believable, exciting world blooms and evolves under the ground.

***

This review is also running on the Best in Fantasy review site. Go and check out Connie's reviews - if you need more fantasy in your life, this is the perfect spot to start!

Dwight Okita, Murakami, and Jellyfish

This summer I've had the pleasure to read both 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami and The Prospect of My Arrival by Dwight Okita. The books were very different, and yet there was a similarity to their style - a deceptive simplicity, deepening excitement, addictive prose, and a sense of melancholy and wonder throughout.

1Q84 is a doorstop of a book that originally was published in three volumes in Japan. It is perfect for anyone who is looking for a book for autumn, one that will last through quite a few rainy nights. Murakami writes about a woman, Aomame, and a man, Tengo. They go through separate adventures that interact in Murakami's signature mysterious existentialism.

Aomame gets out of a cab one day and climbs down from the highway into a world that has two moons. There she finds that things are a bit off. The world has shifted. In that  new alternate universe, a beautiful young girl called Fuka-Eri writes about Little People. They appear out of a dead goat's mouth and build an Air Chrysalis. There are two moons, and a Town of Cats.

Meanwhile, Tengo is working to polish and publish the manuscript by Fuka-Eri called Air Chrysalis. There are fascinating minor characters, such as the man who leads a powerful cult, a man that Aomame is contracted to kill. There is Ushikawa, the man hired by the cult to find Aomame.  Each of these characters is more than they appear - they unfold, like origami, into balanced people with depth and emotion. 

I am already a huge Murakami fan; Kafka on the Shore is one of my very favorite books. To be able to spend a summer reading a long novel by him was a real gift. And he didn't disappoint - 1Q84 satisfied my delight in urban fantasy, science fiction, action, and wonderful writing.

The Prospect of My Arrival was a different kind of read. It is much shorter, for one thing. I read the book in a few evenings, although in part that was because I simply could not put it down. Okita uses dreamy prose that is reminiscent of Murakami. He pumps up the volume on the science fiction, as the book is about a scientific and moral experiment.

Prospect is a foetus, a baby about to be born. He is given enhanced intelligence and a twenty-year-old body and sent out into the world to see if he wants to be born.

To help him in his decision, he is sent to visit Referrals. The book is the story of those visits on one level, but there is a thread of other plots connecting those stories. There are people who are against the Pre-Born Project and who want to stop it at all costs. There is also a love story between Prospect and Lito, his second referral. Okita manages both deftly, making the first exciting and the second lovely and touching.

I have read some reviews on Amazon about The Prospect of My Arrival that complain about the spare prose. Okita uses short sentences and simple description, but to my mind it is done very artistically. The book is like a Mondrian painting. It seems very straightforward at first glance, but there is a complex structure and design behind the simple sentences. And those short phrases echo the soul of Prospect who is, after all, a foetus. 

In one scene, Prospect meets his mother in the Shedd Aquarium. They talk about his sister, Joyce, in front of one of the tanks of jellyfish. "As they leave this place, jellyfish descend in slow motion like parachutes onto the bright coral reefs below them." This image is echoed in another Referral's home. "Sheer pink curtains flutter from the open windows of the living room. They move like jellyfish in the summer breeze."

The jellyfish encapsulated the book, to my mind. The words move lazily, dreamily, like underwater creatures, and yet they are mesmerizing. The plot and the prose seem so simple, and at the same time they are lovely and complex.

Can you get excited about the story of a foetus who may or may not decide to be born? Oh, yes indeed you can. As I said, I could not put it down, and I had a very sad feeling when the book ended. Luckily, Okita has other books coming out, such as The Hope Store, and I will certainly be purchasing everything by him.

I read Prospect as a Kindle book. Formatting is an art unto itself, and Okita's format is breathtaking. He includes images and chapter headings that make this a joy to read. However, the story was so amazing that I need to get the print version and beg the author to sign it for me. Okita is a name to be watched on the Indie front.

This review also appears on The Dark Side Book Reviews blog.

Free Books for Kindle Download 2/12/12; Romance books contest

 All of these books are free for Kindle download today, Sunday, February 12 2012. Just click on the titles to go to the Amazon page.

Binary

Brooklyn- is a junior in high school, who is sick of high school drama. She doesn’t fit in and is the recipient of constant bullying. So, when a stunning, oddly dressed, guy approaches her on the beach, she doesn’t understand why he would; take the time, to talk to her.

Tyche- The son of his planet’s Emperor, is lost. His planet is at war. His father was murdered and the only hope he has, is to find a girl, he has seen in a vision of his future. She is somehow, the key to solving his problems.

The two begin an adventure, with their friends, to find five elements to save Tyche’s planet. In the process they find adventure, love and themselves.

"When our gazes meet, I feel my knees struggle, to keep me standing upright. If this is an illusion, I never want to be sane again. If this is a dream, I never want to wake up. If this is all real, I am in trouble. I don’t think I can pull my heart out, of this one, now that I am in so deep. I can’t fight gravity."

Brother, Betrayed 

"One brother will betray the others with such treachery that it will change the destiny of Miscia forever."

The three princes hear this prophecy, and they will discover how far it will drive them to explore love, loyalty, and their own souls.

The princes are bound by loyalty to each other and their kingdom. When conflict comes to their land, their ascension into power is darkened by betrayal.

Oman, eldest and Anteria's promised king, leads his brothers on their journey through Arnith.

Fasime, driven by passion, seeks a life of romance and adventure.

Syah, born the ailing youngest brother of these two outgoing princes, endeavours to overcome his bleak destiny through pursuit of knowledge and magic... a quest that may reveal unknown power within his own soul.

A tale woven with deception, war, sacrifice, and magic, BROTHER, BETRAYED takes readers to a troubled kingdom surrounded by barbarians, magical races, and forbidden boundaries.

Devil's Kitchen 

In The Night Watchman Express, Miriam and Simon were kidnapped and thrown on the strange train... Now in Book Two of The Crown Phoenix series, they arrive at the terrifying destination known as Devil's Kitchen.

There they will face human experiments in a laboratory known as The Infirmary.

There Miriam will be forced to work in an underground factory.

There Simon is held in a luxurious prison by jailers who are as beautiful as they are deadly...

And their courage will be tested to the breaking point.

 
Sakuri 

Life as a package courier might not be the most glamorous of lifestyles; but for Sakuri it certainly comes at no shortage of thrills and dealings with the city's underbelly. So when an ex-mob boss requests a delivery through Sakuri's work it appears just to be an average job; right down to the attempt on her life to assure that package isn't delivered.

A stray bullet cracks up the case during the battle, revealing an innocuous gemmed gauntlet within. In order to protect the delivery Sakuri slips it on, only to discover that once attached the device is not so willing to be removed. As she would come to know it by; the Metamorpher becomes the source of Sakuri's future troubles.

Thrusting her into a world that constantly challenges the reality she once knew; Sakuri now contends with both earthly foes and a malefic force heralding from beyond the stars seeking the device for itself. Intentions that have no kind regard for the Metamorpher's host; or those around her.

Terps 

Deafness is perceived as a culture and not as a disability in the world of "Terps" and interpreters comprise the subculture that can only exist where Deaf and hearing overlap.

That's the backdrop, but the story is about a marriage. An interpreter marries the only hearing member of a famous Deaf family. The interpreter has chosen to build her life around the Deaf world, but her husband was born into it and would rather do just about anything else.

The Last Guardian 

CJ Carson believes herself to be slightly crazy. For as long as she can remember, she has been plagued with strange dreams, migraines and an imaginary friend that never seems to go away: a voice of love and reason she has heard in her head since childhood.

Born in a time of turmoil and bloodshed, Mika Elkhart is half-coyote, half Lakota warrior. Orphaned at birth, he was taken to Haven, a place of refuge and respite for shape-shifters. There he was raised by the Guardians of Haven, becoming a member of Delta Pack, the Theriontrope Foundation's elite defense force. His was a world of death and darkness aside from his one ray of hope, CJ Carson.

The time has come for Mika to reveal his true identity and convince CJ to willingly take her father’s place as the Guardian of Haven. But for CJ, the road to Haven is laid with danger brought about by the Loki, the Lord of Chaos. Without a Guardian, Haven will destroy itself and without his Little Star, so may Mika.

William the Damned 

A ghost ship... below the deck there is a sight beyond believe, fifty men and woman dead upon their backs.

Their eyes are closed and their hands twined together upon their chest. Here in the lowest deck, where not an inch of light manages to intrude, they lie dead.

William is a vampire pirate, with an unquenchable thirst for human blood. He has an aversion for holy water, crucifixes and garlic. Exposure to sunlight will turn him to dust. He has loved before, but never like this and for Susanna, he would make the ultimate sacrifice.

 Furthermore, you can enter to get an entire shelf of romance books for your ereader! Just click HERE to enter.