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I saw Jamie talking on Twitter today about the Top Ten Tuesday for this week. Today's topic is Top Ten Bookish Pet Peeves. I loved the topic so much that I knew I had to participate this week! I don't participate regularly, but this one was too fun to pass up! Head over to The Broke and Bookish, where this meme is hosted, to see what annoys everyone else!

This is a dangerous topic though, because it means that I have a perfectly legitimate excuse to have 10 mini-rants. So, brace yourself. These pet peeves are in no particular order, but some are more severe than others. Can you guess which ones bother me the most?!:

1. Books in a series that change cover art, style, size, shape etc mid-series. If you are going to change anything about the way a series is going to look, change all of it or change none of it. Nothing bothers me quite so much as realizing it's impossible to have a matching set of books. I get that the inside is more important than the outside. But, when the books are lined up on my shelf, I'm not looking at the inside, but I'm stuck with the unmatching outsides, and it pisses me off every time I have to look at it.

2. Stickers on my books. Really people. Are you kidding me. They never come off, and they look gross. So, just stop it. Now.

3. When two characters experience the Instant Love. Bleh. That doesn't happen. I have no problems with instant chemistry, because attraction (lust) happens. But this ridiculous, I've only known you for one day, but I love and I would die for you is just not okay. You can't truly love someone that fast, so quit trying to shove that crap down my throat. Give me a real relationship, with development first please, before trying to convince me that my heroine should run away to the ends of the earth with you.

4. On a related note, I'm beyond tired of these girl characters who overlook or offer blanket forgiveness for their boyfriend's bad/manipulative/abusive behavior because 'he loves me'. Guess what honey... I'm calling your bullshit. When someone loves you, they do not treat you like dirt, try to control your life, or do things deliberately that they know will hurt you. They just don't. So grow a pair, dump him and move on. And writers, please. Stop giving us stupid, insipid female characters who let their boyfriends walk all over them. What kind of example is this to set to the YA, both male and female?!

5. Dog-earred pages, and deliberately cracked spines. *shudder* It hurts me.

6. Movie Art on my BOOK cover. I HATE YOU! I completely, totally and utterly despise movie art on the cover of my books. AND, I will judge you if you purchase it/make statements that you like it.

7. Movie adaptations. A little piece of the book's soul dies so Hollywood can produce that garbage. It makes me sad inside.

8. Book series that turn into The Land Before Time, aka The Never Ending Story. Umm, authors — I don't care who your character(s) is(are), what they do for a living, or what fantastical realm they live in. No one, and I mean no one has life or story interesting enough to captivate or interest me for 22 books. Or 15 books, or 10 books. No one. Stop while you are ahead, and let the poor characters rest!

9. The following conversation, or any variant of it, really gets my book hackles raised: (me) "Hey! Have you heard about THIS BOOK?!" (them) "Oh ya! That is such a great book! I loved it!" (me) "You've read it?!" (them) "Oh, no. I just watched the movie."

10. Books that try to trick me into believing they are a different genre. I abhor it when my Contemporary/Realistic Fiction suddenly out of nowhere becomes Science Fiction/Fantasy. Oh hello completely normal girl who can now suddenly communicate telepathically with dolphins (and people!!). I hate you. Run along and die now.

So there you have it folks. Those are my Top Ten Bookish Pet Peeves. I feel it necessary to add that I did not make much of an effort in censoring myself, or sugar coating how I felt. Partly because these things do genuinely annoy me and this post is an excuse to rant about them, but also because it's 3:30 in the morning here, and I'm too tired to be more modest in my speech. Can't wait to hear what gets your angry on.

I recently read and reviewed Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure and it's sequel, Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country. (If you missed that, you can find my review HERE.)

I recently conducted an interview with the author, Allan Richard Schickman about his novels and am delighted to share his responses with you! You can also find out more about Allan and his books on this website. (in my blog.)
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First, I would like to thank Allan Shickman for being willing to answer some questions. I really enjoyed reading his novels and am excited to have this chance to talk with him. The pleasure is all mine. I find to my surprise that I just love to talk about myself and my work.
So, have you always known you wanted to be a writer? Or is it something that just kind of happened? You have it exactly right. It just sort of happened. As a student I liked to write, and tried my hand at it from time to time. As a professor I wrote scholarly articles, and most of those journals have very high standards. It was an honor to be published in any one of them. Only upon retirement did I attempt a fictional book. Once I wrote that first chapter I was hooked.
Because I am a reader and I love getting great book recommendations, especially from authors I enjoyed, what are some of your most favorite books? I have always been a lover and student of the classics. Once I find a book I like, I am apt to read it several times over a period of years. Dostoyevsky is my favorite. I read Crime and Punishment when I was sixteen, and I still reread it from time to time. Later in life I discovered Thomas Hardy. I love The Mayor of Casterbridge. Twain’s Huckleberry Finn was one book when I was young, and quite another, richer, book now that I’m older. One never really knows a book until he has read it three times. In that, it’s like a symphony or an opera.
What would you say has been the most influential book or literary experience for you and your writing? Hard question. The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky taught me how complex, contradictory, and downright funny human beings can be. Shakespeare and Milton taught me that language can roar and thunder, and stir the imagination.
Your bio mentions that you were an Art History Professor for years. How did you end up writing a historical fiction novel about the Prehistoric era? That seems like quite the jump. It is not really such a jump. Prehistoric people produced art. I studied it and their possible reasons for producing it. Some of that was in the back of my mind when I wrote the Zan-Gah novels. But there is a lot nobody knows. For all we know, women, not men, did those famous cave paintings. So I mixed knowledge with imagination.
How much research went into writing these two novels? Some. I already knew a little about prehistoric art and life. I needed to learn about slings, and about fishing by hand. I researched twins in primitive societies, and discovered that such societies were sometimes terribly frightened by the birth of twins. They would kill them and their mother (never their father). I used that fear in my books. I also went to a marvelous cavern, Onondaga, in my own cave-rich state of Missouri. I was the only guy in the whole cave who was taking notes. Eyeless salamanders! Cool.
We met a lot of interesting tribes with very complex and different ways of life. Were each of these tribes something out of your imagination, or were they based on actual tribes from history? Mostly imagination. There were no wasp people that I know of, but I did not make up totemism—the belief that a clan is related to an animal and shares some of its qualities. Why not have a people that models itself after stinging wasps?
What sort of evidence and artifacts (if any) do we really have about this era? We have a lot. Whole volumes are written about cave paintings, petroglyphs, sculpture, etc. We have very fat, bulbous steatopygous figures assumed to be models of fertility. I hinted that Siraka-Finaka might have been shaped like the Venus of Willendorf (aw, go ahead and google it), but I didn’t push the idea very hard.
There were some amazing characters in these novels—really strong and well-defined. It made me really glad there was a sequel, because it meant I was able to read more about them. However, the first book does end in a pretty comfortable spot. Was it always your intention to write a sequel to Zan-Gah, or is that a decision that came later. Thanks for “amazing.” I like “amazing.” However, I never intended to write a sequel, but some of my teen friends and relatives encouraged me to do so. The thing is, you can’t write anything until you get an idea. Then you slowly develop it, and put leaves on the tree, so to speak. The second book gave me a chance to develop characters introduced in the first, and work on new ones too. It gives me great satisfaction to think that my readers take an interest in my fictional characters, and want to read more about them.
Any plans for a third Zan-Gah adventure? Yup.
Speaking of future plans, do you have a current work-in-progress? If so, are there any details you can share about it with us? I am working on a third Zan-Gah book, but I am reluctant to talk too much about it. The story continues with Dael's self-imposed exile, as he seeks some sort of redemption or resolution of his life. He will go to live with the crimson people (introduced already in Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country). I think I will call it Dael and the Painted People. But first I have to write it.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with us today? I ask what an author has no right to insist on, that folks read the Zan-Gah books with a little care. It isn’t a race. If you don’t feel the books, you haven’t read them.
Thank you again for answering my questions today. I really appreciate it. Just one last question before we go (because I know which I prefer and it's always an interesting question) Do you prefer wearing shoes or going barefoot? I always shower, swim, and go to bed barefoot. Any other time, I am shod.
Thank you too. ____________________________________________________
How wonderful! I'm definitely excited for this third Zan-Gah novel. And, I totally googled that statue.:) Also, I am going to be offering a signed copy of each of these books to one lucky reader in the next few days so stayed tuned! Be sure to comment and let me know what you think!

Girl Saves Boy by Steph Bowe is a hard book for me to review. I want to start by saying I did honestly enjoy this book, and I will definitely be watching for what Steph Bowe comes out with in the future. And, there is nothing that I can pinpoint as to why I didn't love this book. But, something wasn't quite there for me. Let me try and explain myself.

Jewel and Sacha are the main characters, and each have their own unique set of problems that basically means they are both pretty messed up.

Jewel watched her older brother drown when she was 8 years old. Her father blamed her for his death, and told her she should never have been born, right before walking out of her life. Her mother, unable to cope, ODed several times on pain killers and anti-depressants, and finally sends Jewel from Australia to Canada to live with her grandparents, because Mom just can't deal. 10 years later, Jewel's grandparents have both died, and because she has no where else to go, she comes back to her childhood home to finish her final year of school.

Sacha was diagnosed with Leukemia as a child, and spent all of his elementary years in and out of the hospital. The Leukemia did finally go into remission, but his parent's marriage was never quite... solid after that. Desperate to regain the attention of her husband, Sacha's mom starts down a path that will eventually kill her. One year later, Sacha is still trying to deal with the death of his mother, his guilt over not being able to help her, the fact that his father is now dating his male art teacher, oh ya... and the Leukemia is back, and the prognosis is terminal.

Sacha decides life is no longer worth living and tries to drown himself in the lake where Jewel's brother died. Jewel often walks near there at night to clear her head, and she sees s boy in the water. Desperate to undo the mistake of her past, she jumps in and saves Sacha's life, something he's not so sure he's grateful for yet.

After Jewel saves him, their paths cross, and they realize they have an awful lot to offer each other. They start spending time together, and each

Now that Sacha has had a little more time to come to terms with his prognosis, he has an interesting view on life. He knows he's going to die, so he desperately wants to use the time he has left living. He struggles with whether or not it's worth it to keep going to school. He wants to tell the people he's closest to about everything, but is scared and doesn't want to be a burden to them. It's shown him that he needs to live life to the fullest, and he tries to do that. Things move faster between him and Jewel than they probably would otherwise, and he seems desperate to get in as much time with her as possible.

Although both Jewel and Sacha are supposed to be the main characters, and the story is told in alternating view points, I really felt it was Sacha who carried the story, Sacha would is most likely to touch my heart and teach me something. There is a lot to learn from a boy living out what may possibly be his final year of life.

Jewel does learn a lot during the week or so we spend with them. Her only goal in life is to be homeless in New York or London, and draw. She doesn't want to sell her art, or even show anyone. She draws for herself and that's enough for her. She decided a long time ago that she is going to be alone forever, and aside from periodic moments of staggering loneliness, she is content with the path she has chosen for herself. Until she meets Sacha. And then everything she has thought about herself and her future begin to change.

There were a few side 'issues' in the book that felt odd to me, and I think this is where my main disconnect from the book comes in. In the interest of avoiding any more spoilers than I've already given, I won't go into details, but there were some issues that felt like they were brought up, just to be issues, or additional conflict that didn't really go anywhere, like the phone call for her mother that Jewel answers at the end of the book. And, how easily Jewel resolved her conflict with her mother. I honestly felt that it was a 'kiss (or hug) and make-up' moment. Nothing was resolved, but life is suddenly grand.

Perhaps my favorite thing about this book, aside from the great characterization present in Sacha and Jewel was the ending. It's like a big question mark at the end of a page, but not in a bad way. The story resolved what needed to be resolved, but didn't spoon-feed us all the answers. It left much to the imagination and decision of the reader, and I think that was a wise way to let their story end.

Have any of you read this book? Did anyone else have a similar or completely different reaction? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

This awesome interview comes to us courtesy of Bonnie from A Backwards Story. We've already mentioned Bonnie and the sphere of awesome she inhabits — she's really gotten on board with Fairy Tale Fortnight, and on top of posting scads of awesome reviews on her blog during the event, she's also sending some pretty terrific content our way, to share with you.
For today's post, Bonnie sat down to talk with Heather Dixon, author of the debut fairy tale Entwined, based on Misty's childhood favorite, The 12 Dancing Princesses.
(Yay!)

Heather Dixon’s debut novel, Entwined, is a re-telling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The novel is lush and fleshes out the classic tale in a beautiful, descriptive fashion. For a review of Entwined, please visit A Backwards Story or Books From Bleh to Basically Amazing

Heather was kind enough to not only sit down and take the time to answer some questions, but scrounge up some awesome Disney trivia for everyone! Thanks so much, Heather!

1) What were your favorite fairy tales growing up? What drew you to them?
I really loved Disney’s Cinderella, and, of course, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, for the same reason: the visual aspect! I loved watching Cinderella’s rags transform into a beautiful dress, and I loved going through The Twelve Dancing Princesses picture books and seeing all of their dresses, and the sparkling forests. Call me shallow…I like pictures.

2) Was it hard coming up with your own spin on The Twelve Dancing Princesses when you began world-building for Entwined? How did you bring everything together?
The early-early drafts of Entwined were horrendous. It was much closer to the original Grimm fairy tale, took place in the medieval time period, and there was a lot to do with witches and blood magic. But it was so dark; I didn’t enjoy how I felt when I worked on it. It wasn’t until I established the theme of the story—forgiveness between the princesses and their father—that it started to take off. The Victorian time period, with its rules and mourning, was the perfect backdrop. Not to mention the dancing with waltzes and balls, and the courtships! Like magic, everything unfolded after that.

3) What are some of your favorite fairy tale inspired novels and/or authors?
I like all of them, from Ella Enchanted to Beauty! My favorite though is Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt. It is a beautiful story with so much depth.

4) If you could live out any fairy tale, what would it be and why?
Yikes, I don’t know if I’d want to live one out. They’re all kind of Grimm. (Ber-dum ching!) I wouldn’t say no to Sleeping Beauty. She has a pretty cushy life and gets to sleep for 100 years. I could handle that.

5) Will you be writing any more fairy tale novels? Can you tell us anything about your upcoming work?
Right now I don’t have any fairy tales in the novel pipeline, but I can see myself doing a princess comic or picture book, or a long rhyming fairy tale. (A fun one: a retelling of Undine, but with the princess trapped in reflections rather than water.) I’d also love to do a novel of The Nutcracker or Candyland.

6) What’s your favorite Disney rendition of a fairy tale? What makes it so special?
I love all the Disney fairy tales. They do a tremendous job with their adaptations. I feel a real kinship with Disney’s Sleeping Beauty though because of the spectacular art. The beautiful Eyvind Earle backgrounds/art direction and the Tom Oreb character designs are so inspiring. I find it very touching.

And, because I'm a sucker for animation, here are a couple of tasties about Disney's fairy tales:

-Disney's Cinderella is based off of the Charles Perrault version, not the Brother's Grimm (Nearly all the versions of Cinderella I know of have been based off of Perrault's).
[Misty says: That's because Perrault is awesomesauce. Hands down fave.]

-The backgrounds in Disney's Snow White are muted and soft because the artists were unsure people could handle brighter colors in a feature-length film.

-Disney's new movie, Tangled, was originally meant to have a rococo look, but when the project switched direction, the makers chose Disney's Cinderella and Disneyland's Fantasyland (!) as inspiration for their new look.

-Some little-known fairy-tale adaptations Disney has done: The Tin Soldier (from Fantasia 2000) and The Little Match Girl (a short at the beginning of The Little Mermais’s re-release). They've also been working (off and on) with Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen.

-The tall, vertical trees and square bushes in Disney's Sleeping Beauty were based off of medieval tapestries.

-Right now Pixar is working on Brave, a fairy-tale story about a girl archer.

-Disney's Cinderella takes place in the late Victorian era.

Today's interview is with Zoë Marriott, author of The Swan Kingdom (read Ashley's review) , Daughter of the Flames (which Ashley also loved) and the upcoming Shadows on the Moon (which both Misty and Ashley are eagerly awaiting). Zoë has known that she wanted to be a writer since she was finished reading her first book; The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. She thinks she was about eight, but she decided on being a writer and hasn't changed her mind since then. And boy, are we glad that she didn't! Help us welcome Zoë to the blog today!!

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The Swan Kingdom is my favorite retelling of The Six Swans/The Wild Swans that I have come across. You talk about what inspired you to write this one down in your guest post. I loved what you did with the story to make it your own, but your interpretation of the ending to this story is largely responsible for how much I love this book. Without spoiling anything, can you talk about that? Can you share where or how that idea came to you?

So hard not to spoil!! Argh! Okay... well... basically, in the original version of the story, I didn't think the heroine really got a very happy ending. Or enough credit! She's clearly an extraordinarily brave and strong young woman, loyal the her brothers to the end despite all the suffering she's gone through — but she gets stuck with this prince who pretty much *kidnapped* her, and then was going to burn her because he thought she was a witch? That's true love for you, right? And she never gets justice for the wrong done to her family by her stepmother, or any closure, or even to see the land of her birth again! I suppose a few hundred years ago women weren't supposed to care about thing like that, but I was sure that for someone like her, the fate of the people she had left behind much have weighed on her mind very heavily. And then, it also made sense to me that in order to reverse such a powerful curse on her brothers through almost nothing but willpower and knitting, she must have had some fairly strong magical power of her own! So I wanted to try and bring those elements into the resolution of the story and bring everything full circle.

Did you have the changes you brought to the story in mind before you started writing, or were these things that came to you after?

Wow, that's a good question! I think some of them were always there, because they grew from the questions I had about the story — the questions that made me want to retell it. I mean, for example: just who was the mother of these royal children? In fairytales the real mother nearly always gets erased in the first line and replaced by a wicked plot-point. But it seemed to me that, particularly in The Wild Swans, where the father is pretty much a non-entity and yet the children are remarkable, that the mysterious, dead mother must have been remarkable too. So I always new that in my version the mother and particularly her death would be significant and happen 'on-screen' as it were.
In other cases, the changes to the story were due to things that happened to be marinading in my brain at the time. When I was working on the first draft of the story I was watching a BBC documentary series about British pre-history in which there was a lot of information about the hunter-gatherers who built all our long barrows and stone circles. The experts talked about ancestor worship, and about the way that cave art seemed to show animal and human spirts all together, as part of nature. But then as people started to farm and develop agriculture and a more sedentary life, the idea of ownership and kingdoms appeared, and there was a massive shift in the way people lived. Did the hunter-gatherers disappear? Or were they absorbed into the farmer population? So those ideas worked their way into the book, and gave me an interesting and, I think, unique magical system and backstory for the Kingdom.
Is there a fairy tale that you just need to retell, but are waiting to retell, or holding off for now? What are some of the other fairy tales you've considered retelling? Are there any fairy tales that you absolutely do not want to retell?
Sooo many! I've always wanted to retell Beauty and the Beast, but I'm horribly intimidated by Robin McKinley's legacy. I mean, how is anyone supposed to live up to THAT? And there are a lot of less famous stories, for example, from Japanese mythology, that I have ideas about. The one I've never really been interested in is Sleeping Beauty — there's so little for the princess to do, and the idea of falling conveniently in love with your saviour bugs me. But I'd never say never. I always hated Cinderella too, until she started whacking me on the back of the head with a pick-axe demanding I tell her story properly!
You've also written a non-fairy tale story, Daughter of the Flames. How does the writing and the research differ between the two genres? Which do you prefer writing? Do you prefer creating a completely new story and creating the world to fit the story, or taking an existing story at making it your own?

This isn't a very interesting answer, but I can't really put my finger on any significant differences in the process between writing an original fantasy and a fairytale relling. Possibly because I don't stick very closely to the specific events of my fairytale frameworks (as you may have noticed!) which means I still need to come up with my own plot, my own characters, my own emotional conflicts and arcs. Probably more importantly, I don't really think that writing a fairytale retelling is a get-out-of-jail card when it comes to setting. It's easy to slip into that non-specific, Eurocentric, Tolkien-esque world we all know so well. But that is a thin, bland sort place where I don't have much fun as a writer. Creating the world of Shadows on the Moon, for instance, required as much (actually, far more!) thought and research than the world of Daughter of the Flames.
Your most recent book, Shadows on the Moon comes out this July, and I'm crazy excited for it. It's a Cinderella story, but she is most assuredly not your typical Cinderella. You mention why you wrote her this way in your guest post, and I am dying to read about it. There are many fairy tales with rather weak heroines. Are there any other stories that you would like to retell to give the heroines a chance to be strong?
Actually, I think the female characters in fairytales tend to get a bit of a bad rep, overall. In a lot of original folk stories, young woman are cunning, resourceful, brave and loyal. Often men are the weak ones who need to be rescued. Look at Janet in Tam Lin, Kai and Gerda in the Snow Queen, the heroine of East of the Sun and West of the Moon, all those clever young witches and woodcutter's daughters! And the powerful, fearsome baddies are often women too. The problem, I think, is that the Victorians didn't approve of all these bold, adventuring women, and they cut their parts down and sometimes out entirely, in order to make fairytales 'fit' for their children. Not many years later, Disney carried on this process by producing a great many films in which being sweet, obedient and passive (and supernaturally attractive to forest animals) were the heroine's only traits. Later films, like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, did allow the heroines to have SOME personality — but their number one desire was nearly always to escape from their fathers so they could find true love, and their princes were the ones with the claws/swords.
It's really only very lately that we're seeing books and films that give women back their original, strong roles (Tangled, for example!) and I'm very happy to be a part of that process.
Silly/Random Questions:
~Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale?

Pencils, probably. I always have one on me somewhere! Princess Pen... now, why does that sound familiar?:)
~ Using that name, give us a line from your life as a fairy tale: "Princess Pen cracked open her stepmother's ribcage and cut out the woman's horribly blackened, twisted, yet still-beating heart; she then replaced it with an artificial one which she had grown within a local farmer's pig, and closed up the incision."
[Misty likes Princess Pen already... ]
~Best fairy tale villain and why? The wicked fairy from Sleeping Beauty's christening. She's really the only interesting character in the thing!
~Favorite tale from childhood? Favorite tale as an adult? Least favorites? Childhood favourite was definitely The Wild Swans, and I have to be boring and say it STILL is. Least favourite used to be Cinderella — now Sleeping Beauty.
~If you could be any fairy tale character, or live through any fairy tale "happening," who/what would it be? I wouldn't. Are you crazy? Those stories are full of utter loonies, and even Princess Pen isn't mightier than the sword.
~Would you rather: - — eat magic beans or golden eggs? Golden eggs. With a little smoked salmon, on toast points. Maybe they would finally allow me to get a tan. - — style 50ft long hair or polish 100 pairs of glass slippers? My hair is actually waist-length right now, and I'm about to have it cut off from sheer annoyance, so I'd have to go with the slippers! - — have a fairy godmother or a Prince Charming? Fairy godmother — and once you've read Shadows on the Moon, you will know why! [Ashley says — SO mean to tease us this way when you already know how badly I want to read it! :) ] Fill-in-the-Gaps, story 1: Three Wishes
The strange little man had offered Princess Pen three wishes. But what to wish for? The obvious answer was world peace , but that would never do, for obvious reasons. Princess Pen wasn't naive enough to think that people would ever stop fighting for long. And unlimited money for stem cell research was out of the question, since Princess Pen's wicked stepmother had outlawed it.

The Princess squandered the first two wishes on aiding earthquakes sufferers and cooling down some nuclear reactors, and really needed to make the 3rd one count. There was only one thing to do: he/she would ask her genetically enhanced pig, Francis.

So early in the morning, the Princess set off for her lab where the porcine Francine lived. It was no easy task getting there; Princess Pen went through three security searches and a full body CT scan, and nearly lost hope of ever reaching Francis and making her final wish before she had to go off and do her rounds at Mount Eraser Hospital. Her stepmother's security measures were really getting out of hand.

But in all good time, Princess Pen reached the door of the one person who could help. With great trepidation, (for Francis could be somewhat cranky in the mornings if he hadn't had his coffee) Pen knocked and waited. Finallly, Francis opened the door with one handsomely trimmed trotter and peered out. “Yes?” he said.

Pen launched into the story of the little old man and his three wishes, but Francis merely held up a hand and said “It’s simple, really. I’m surprised you wasted your time coming all the way out here — you must wish for your wicked stepmother to agree to heart surgery so you can change her blackened, wizened heart for one which is generous and free of bigotry and unreasoning fear.”

Pen was baffled. Wish for something so simple? Not magic League-Boots to travel the world, or a wheel to spin flax into gold so that she could set up an inoculation project in the slums? However, it wasn't long before Pen realized that if her government was run by someone who actually had a working heart all the other things might one day be possible. So the Princess did the only thing she could, and wished for her stepmother to finally heed her pleas to accept a new heart.

Whether it was the right choice, the world will never know, but for Princess Pen it meant freedom from a great deal of unnecessary red tape in the long run, and the increased well being of everyone within the kingdom. And with all of the wishes gone, Pen lived busily ever after.
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Thanks for stopping by Zoë!! We're so glad to have you!
Hope you guys liked the guest post. If you want to fill in one of the stories for yourself, see this post.
And make sure to head over to our awesome guest post from Zoë, and enter to win our prize pack of Zoë's books!

Up for grabs today is a whole lot of awesome! Feast your eyes on these beauties:

Misty says: I'm not going to lie (and it wouldn't do any good, because everyone already knows) I am a sucker for a good cover. These are two that I want to just display prominently and treat like art. So beautiful! Both have been featured on The Book Rat before:
Friday Face Off | TBR Tuesday | First Pages: Extraordinary
You can check out our reviews, too:
Misty: Impossible | Ashley: Extraordinary | Misty: Extraordinary (coming soon!)

Want to win one of these delicious lovelies for yourself? We have 3 prizes to offer up, which break down like this:

• 1 person will win a paperback of Impossible!
• 1 person will win an ARC of Extraordinary!
• 1 person will win a prize pack of both books!

• Must answer at least 1 question in detail* to enter (at least 2 to enter for the prize pack); each additional question earns you another entry *ie no 1 word answers
• Make sure we have a way to contact you
• If you have a preference on which book you win, leave it with your answer
• +1 for tweeting
• US only
• Ends May 5th May 8th!
• HAVE FUN!

Here it is everyone! A special thank you to author M. Clifford for taking the time to write up a post just for us. Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts!

Most of the time when people read my novel, THE BOOK (www.dontreadthebook.com) , they come away proud of the passion they always had inside for the written word and for storytelling. Some people close the novel with a fresh desire to read more paperbacks or to buy their books from used bookstores and sign the inside cover so that someone will always know that they owned that book and loved those pages. A lot of people ask me what my intentions were in writing THE BOOK and there are many. To follow through on my promise to give you a unique guest blog post, I'll touch on the one motivation I haven't discussed very much — the redemption of the storyteller. In my novel, I definitely glorify story and the ability to read it freely from an honest source. Reading is a private and very personal act. Authors are who they are because they love telling stories. Creating an arc and then another arc and then another until they reached the end of a much larger one that began somewhere in the beginning. I'm an intentionally self-published independent author. I've never sought representation from a major publishing house or even attempted to get an agent beyond a few query letters six years back. I'm sort of a rare breed in that I am passionately supportive of the indie author and I encourage them to get their work read, edited and uploaded so that story-lovers can keep finding things to read. Not everyone is a storyteller, even when they've written a book, and that's sort of the negative element to the benefit of being able to self-publish. Stay with me because I'll loop this back to the beginning and it'll all makes sense in a minute. I have often read books that are waiting for me to open them the moment I enter a bookstore. Stacks upon stacks of shiny covers waiting. I know hundreds of thousands have been printed and I almost feel a responsibility to take one for that fact alone. And then, when I get home and start reading, I have felt by chapter four that I've already listened to four different voices. Three other people have written a few sentences here and a paragraph there. I'm sure of it. Although publishing houses do a good service for the written word by printing and distributing and marketing high-quality stories, they are a still a business. A for-profit business. They will alter a story if need be, or convince an author to do so, simply to sell more copies. I wouldn't be surprised if there are authors today that, after submitting their work, get a reply like, "Solid book, but please make all your characters vampires. Send it back and we've got a deal!" That is obviously an outrageous, dramatic example. My point is that altering an original work is akin to someone being interrupted during the telling of a campfire story. I included a similar scene in my book, sans interruption. Campfire storytelling is a wonderful pastime where novels begin and the mind of the creative person is sparked toward a future in writing. The desire to tantalize and entice people around them, to get them to the edge of their log as they wait to find out where the man with the hook on his arm is hiding. Now picture this budding author telling his story, only to be interrupted by someone else at camp who thinks everyone needs to know that "one of the characters was also a vampire. Okay... go ahead now. Finish the story." Even though plenty of readers could find that to be more beneficial to the story, I think it is important for readers to know that when they buy a book from a bookstore, or from someone that isn't an independent author, they may not be getting a single story. They are getting one that has been edited with scissors and tape and red pen from multiple handwriting styles suggesting alternate story lines, characters, etc. When you read THE BOOK, it is 100% mine. Every idea is mine and every line is mine (other than what I reference from classic and contemporary literature) because no one has the ability to control my writing. Although this was not my main motivation, not even in the top 10, I do think it is important as we move into this new age of digital reading to discuss the future of publication. I would be lying if part of me wasn't afraid for the authors who have written stories that other people control. Who's to say that on the 50th anniversary of THE SHINING by Stephen King, the sales department at the publishing house will not only create a new cover, but alter the story to explain that the reason the main character went crazy and attacked his family was because of a full moon and that he was actually a werewolf or something. Sure it sounds interesting when you hear the idea, but Stephen King may not be alive when that happens, which means that he would be unable to defend the characters he created. Is that really fair to do that to him or his characters? In a sense, the publishing house owns those characters... so...

We see a lot of this today with Quirk Classics and their new release of Android Karenina. I'm not opposed to taking old stories and putting a new twist on them, I think it's really smart. I hope to dabble in that at some point in my future. It's fun and it's creative, but it only illustrates my point further. How destroyed would Jane Austen be to known that her characters were mangled and reformed into something comedic and disgusting? To know that the lines that she cried over, that mixed with the ink of her pen, were now spliced with a graphic image of a zombie tearing into the fleshy neck of some matriarch from a rich family while she's reading quietly in her stately home. The difficult thing is that there is not an easy answer for this question. That's why a lot of people have enjoyed discussing THE BOOK after buying it, because I ask a lot of unanswerable questions. Do we treat these books as just a collection of words? One after the other, after the other and the other, until there are enough pages to be clasped together and wrapped with a hard linen binding? Or are they unique works of art that must remain perfectly intact, structurally sound, exactly as the artist intended? Does it make it okay to chop it up and change it simply because enough time has passed? Maybe. It's a good discussion to have. What is great is that my book is gaining attention during the advent of popularity with these mash-up novels. I think that in ten or twenty years we'll really see how people go about augmenting this idea further. Here's the real truth in the matter: the moment you edit or add to an original manuscript, a line is crossed. Again, I'm not saying crossing that line is bad. But it is crossed and respect must still be given to the original. How far then do we walk past the line before it is too hard to get back? And, by then, when we reach the point of no return, will people even care? As an author, I know I would be devastated to hear that a hundred years from now someone could take my characters and change them any way they pleased, simply to make a profit. Those characters are pieces of me and I love them, as any author would. I poured my soul into them. But, in the same breath, although I would not agree with the actions of someone disfiguring my work, I'll fight to the death their freedom to do so. And maybe therein lies the real question — How much of this is an expression of freedom, and how much is a defacement of public property? The reader must decide, because it's not stopping anytime soon. M. Clifford

Fall for Anything by Courtney Summers is the kind of book I've always loved, but haven't read much of lately — contemporary fiction, with a protagonist full of painful somethings, struggling to add balance back into their world. (How's that for vague?;) )

Eddie is reeling from the suicide of her father, struggling to understand why he could do something like this. His suicide note was vague and Eddie is left needing to know why her father felt the need to end his own life. Her mother hasn't gotten dressed in anything except his bathrobe since he died, let alone remember to go grocery shopping or take care of Eddie, so Beth, her mom's best friend, moves in temporarily to try and help out. But, although she means well, I seriously wanted to slap her. She isn't helpful. Almost everything she says/does makes things harder on Eddie, and increases the weight pressing against her shoulders. Eddie is already in a pretty black place. She doesn't need the judgements of her mom's best friend making things worse.

Her best friend, Milo, wants to help her, but she is keeping part of herself back right now, and she also knows that Milo is keeping something from her about the night her father died, information Eddie feels is necessary for her to begin understanding why her father did what he did.

Then, Eddie meets Cullen. He was a photography student of her father's and they sort of share grief. Eddie is desperate for someone she can relate to, who also feels a gaping loss and needs to know why, so she latches on to Cullen and makes some pretty reckless decisions.

Milo is awesome. He is just a rock solid best friend, trying to be there for Eddie when she needs him while he is also struggling through some changing emotions. He's not sure how to help Eddie, and you can definitely sense the pain he's in, because he doesn't know how to help. Cullen was a strange character, right from the start, and he's one I was never quite sure how I was supposed to feel about. Initially, I liked him because he seemed to be someone for Eddie to share pain with as a way to heal. But then, I honestly believe that Cullen became toxic. Thinking about him now makes me shudder. And yet, he isn't necessarily a bad person, just seriously misguided and maybe a little deranged.

The pain in this book was so real it's palpable. I loved that photography was such an integral part of this story, because, to me, reading this book was like looking at a particularly powerful photograph. It's so real you can almost reach out and touch it, but it's also one of the more distant art forms, because no matter how intimate the shot, the photographer is removed from the subject and only has contact with the lens. I don't know if that makes as much sense to you as it does to me, but I definitely felt like it could not have been done better.

I hadn't read anything by Courtney Summers before picking this up, but I ended up buying a copy of Cracked Up to Be a few days after finishing this one because I was so amazed and wowed by the story. It's a heartbreaking story made powerful by the writing and a couple weeks later, the story still leaves me reeling every time I think about it.

The ending was just as powerful as the rest of the story, and I was left with a feeling of rightness. Not everything was completely resolved and it isn't even a particularly happy ending. But, that's life. Real life doesn't come with wrapping paper and bows for our struggles, so books about pain shouldn't either.

If you haven't read this book yet and you enjoy contemporary YA I think you are seriously missing out. It's raw, emotional and powerful. It's going to make you uncomfortable. It will make you wonder, and it kind of blurs a few lines between right and wrong, but it makes you think and it makes you feel, and I don't know what else you can ask from a book.

*Disclaimer: This book was received through Around the World Tours.

I'm archiving this page as a post to make room for Books Read in 2011!!

*If there is a link, it will take you to my review. If I received the book from another blogger, I will link them after the title. 1. I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil, and I want to be Your Class President - Josh Lieb 2. Ellen Foster- Kaye Gibbons 3. The Red Pony- John Steinbeck 4. Johnny Tremain- Esther Forbes (NB) 5. Rifles for Watie- Harold Keith (NB) 6. Scorpions- Walter Dean Meyers (NBH) 7. Wild Orchid- Cameron Dokey 8. The Winter Child- Cameron Dokey 9. What My Mother Doesn't Know- Sonya Sones 10. What My Girlfriend Doesn't Know- Sonya Sones 11. Punkzilla- Adam Rapp (PH) 12. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes- Chris Crutcher 13. Ransom My Heart- Meg Cabot (Mia T.) 14. Goddess of Yesterday- Caroline B. Cooney 15. That Was Then, This Is Now- S.E. Hinton 16. Book of a Thousand Days- Shannon Hale 17. A Visit to William Blake's Inn- Nancy Willard (NB) 18. Skellig- David Almond (PH) 19. Crazy Jack- Donna Jo Napoli 20. Everything on a Waffle- Polly Horvath (NBH) 21. I am Not Joey Pigza- Jack Gantos 22. Hoot- Carl Hiaasen (NBH) 23. Freaks, Alive on the Inside- Annette Curtis Klause 24. Burned- Ellen Hopkins 25. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks- E. Lockhart (PH) 26. Prom Nights from Hell- Anthology 27. The Girl Who Could Fly- Victoria Forester 28. The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold- Francesca Lia Block 29. The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom- Margarita Engle (NBH) 30. Jellicoe Road- Melina Marchetta (PA) 31. Rabbit Hill- Robert Lawson (NB) 32. The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural- Patricia McKissack (NBH) 33. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian- Sherman Alexie 34. Unwind- Neal Shusterman 35. I Capture the Castle- Dodie Smith 36. Wintergirls - Laurie Halse Anderson 37. The Rumpelstiltskin Problem- Vivian Vande Velde 38. Go Ask Alice - "Anonymous" 39. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village- Laura Amy Schiltz (NB) 40. A Corner of the Universe- Ann M. Martin (NBH) 41. Gentlehands- M.E. Kerr 42. The Thirteenth Princess- Diane Zahler 43. Hard Love- Ellen Wittlinger (PH) 44. A Certain Slant of Light- Laura Whitcomb 45. Bella at Midnight- Diane Stanley 46. The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold 47. Chalice- Robin McKinley 48. Because I am Furniture- Thalia Chaltas 49. The Unfinished Angel- Sharon Creech 50. Prom- Laurie Halse Anderson 51. Elijah of Buxton- Christopher Paul Curtis (NBH) 52. The Goose Girl- Shannon Hale 53. Enna Burning- Shannon Hale 54. River Secrets- Shannon Hale 55. Forest Born- Shannon Hale 56. The View from the Cherry Tree- Willo Davis Roberts 57. The Princess and the Bear- Mette Ivie Harrison 58. Night- Elie Wiesel 59. You Don't Know Me- David Klass 60. A Kiss in Time- Alex Finn 61. Palace of Mirrors- Margaret Peterson Haddix 62. Push - Sapphire 63. Calamity Jack- Shannon Hale 64. Hostage- Willo Davis Roberts 65. Going Bovine- Libba Bray (PA) 66. Sold- Patricia McCormick 67. When You Reach Me - Rebecca Stead (NB) 68. Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits- Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson 69. Legally Correct Fairy Tales- David Fisher 70. The Castle Corona- Sharon Creech 71. Ugly- Donna Jo Napoli 72. Inside Out - Terry Trueman 73. Scared Stiff- Willo Davis Roberts 74. The Invisible - Mats Wahl 75. Black Pearls- Louise Hawes 76. Violet Eyes- Debbie Viguie 77. One of those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies- Sonya Sones 78. An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793- Jim Murphy (NBH) 79. When Dad Killed Mom - Julius Lester 80. I Had Seen Castles- Cynthia Rylant 81. Fever, 1793- Laurie Halse Anderson 82. Daughter of the Flames- Zoe Marriott 83. Imaginary Lands- Anthology 84. You Remind Me of You- Eireanne Corrigan 85. PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God- Frank Warren 86. PostSecret: The Secret Lives of Men and Women- Frank Warren 87. PostSecret: A Lifetime of Secrets- Frank Warren 88. If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't be Hard: and Other Reassuring Truths- Sheri Dew 89. PostSecrets: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives- Frank Warren 90. By the Time You Read This, I'll be Dead- Julie Ann Peters 91. The Diamond Secret- Suzanne Weyn 92. Letters from Rifka- Karen Hesse 93. Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow- Susan Campbell Bartoletti (NBH) 94. The Twits- Roald Dahl 95. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory- Roald Dahl 96. Echo- Francesca Lia Block 97. The Cybil War- Besty Byars 98. Summer of My German Soldier- Bette Greene 99. The Map of True Places - Brunonia Barry (Lori @ TNBBB) 100. Full Tilt- Neal Shusterman 101. The Book - M. Clifford (Lori @ TNBBB) 102. Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein 103. When You Reach Me- Rebecca Stead (NB) 104. Chucaro: Wild Pony of the Pampa- Francis Kalnay (NBH) 105. how i live now - Meg Rosoff (PA) 106. Tenderness - Robert Cormier 107. When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw - Isaac Bashevis Singer (NBH) 108. The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Brian Selznick 109. A Light in the Attic - Shel Silverstein 110. American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang (PA) 111. Izzy, Willy-Nilly - Cynthia Voigt 112. Falling Up - Shel Silverstein 113. Zlateh the Goat and other Stories - Isaac Bashevis Singer (NBH) 114. John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth - Elizabeth Partridge (PH) 115. Forget You - Jennifer Echols (Review copy) 116. Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure - Allan Richard Shickman (Review copy) 117. Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country - Allan Richard Shickman (Review copy) 118. A Journey into Tomorrow - Veronica Camille Tinto (Review copy) 119. I know I am, but what are You? - Samantha Bee (Review copy) 120. Before I Fall- Lauren Oliver 121. Figgs and Phantoms - Ellen Raskin (NBH) 122. If I Stay - Gayle Forman 123. Tiger Eyes- Judy Blume 124. A Season of Gifts- Richard Peck 125. Maus I: My Father Bleeds History- Art Spiegelman 126. Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began- Art Spiegelman 127. Jonathan Livingston Seagull- Richard Bach 128. The Report Card- Andrew Clements 129. The Tales of Beedle the Bard- J.K. Rowling 130. The Hundred Dresses- Eleanor Estes (NBH) 131. Knee-Knock Rise- Natalie Babbitt (NBH) 132. Coraline- Neil Gaiman 133. The Little Prince- Antoine de Saint Exupery 134. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 135. The Wonder Book- Amy Krouse Rosenthal (Bri Meets Books) 136. Over Sea, Under Stone- Susan Cooper 137. The Dark is Rising-Susan Cooper (NBH) 138. Greenwitch- Susan Cooper 139. The Grey King- Susan Cooper (NB) 140. Silver on the Tree- Susan Cooper 141. One Child - Jeff Buick (Review copy) 142. Firelight - Sophie Jordan (ARC tour) 143. The Cricket in Times Square- George Seldon (NBH) 144. The Thyssen Affair - Mozelle Richardson (Review copy) 145. Morning is a Long Time Coming- Bette Greene 146. The Duck Song - Bryant Oden (Review copy) 147. Feed- M.T. Anderson 148. A Northern Light- Jenniger Donnelly (PH) 149. The Upstairs Room- Johanna Reiss 150. Ash - Malinda Lo 151. Looking for Alaska - John Green (PA) 152. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins 153. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins 154. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins (The Good, the Bad & the Ugly) 155. This Lullaby - Sarah Dessen 156. Just Listen - Sarah Dessen 157. My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins and Fenway Park- Steve Kluger 158. To Be a Slave- Julius Lester (NBH) 159. The Phantom Tollbooth- Norton Juster 160. A Day No Pigs Would Die- Robert Newton Peck 161. The Voice that Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights - Russell Freedman (NBH) 162. The Chocolate War- Robert Cormier 163. Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - David Levithan & Rachel Cohn 164. Extraordinary - Nancy Werlin (ARC tour) 165. Crank - Ellen Hopkins 166. Liam the Leprechaun - Charles A. Wilkinson (Review copy) 167. Glass - Ellen Hopkins 168. It's Like this, Cat- Emily Cheney Neville (NB) 169. Miracles on Maple Hill- Virginia Sorenson (NB) 170. Alphabet Woof- Doreen Cronin (Review copy) 171. Pirate Treasure - Benjamin Flinders (Review copy) 172. The Lost City of Atlantis - Benjamin Flinders (Review copy) 173. A Step from Heaven- An Na (PA) 174. The Body of Christopher Creed- Carol Plum-Ucci (PH) 175. The Duff - Kody Keplinger (ARC tour) 176. Hattie Big Sky - Kirby Larson (NBH) 177. Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun- Rhoda Blumberg (NBH) 178. Tales from Silver Lands - Charles J. Finger (NB) 179. The Princess and the Snowbird- Mette Ivie Harrison 180. Tangerine- Edward Bloor 181. The Forest of Hands and Teeth - Carrie Ryan 182. Saving Francesca- Melina Marchetta 183. Graceling- Kristin Cashore 184. Hunger - Jackie Morse Kessler 185. Fire- Kristin Cashore 186. The Thief - Megan Whalen Turner (NBH) 187. Little Brother- Cory Doctrow 188. 26 Fairmount Avenue- Tomie DePaola (NBH) 189. Stuck in Neutral- Terry Trueman (PH) 190. The First Part Last- Angela Johnson (PA) 191. Low Red Moon - Ivy Devlin (ARC tour) 192. Fallout - Ellen Hopkins (ARC tour) 193. Carver: A Life in Poems - Marilyn Nelson (NBH) 194. The Great Fire- Jim Murphy (NBH) 195. In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World- Virginia Hamilton (NBH) 196. Fallen - Lauren Kate 197. The Magic Circle- Donna Jo Napoli 198. Flipped- Wendelin Van Draanen 199. Paranormalcy - Kiersten White (ARC tour) 200. Personal Demons - Lisa Desrochers (ARC tour) 201. Losing Faith - Denise Jaden (ARC tour) 202. Mountain Born- Elizabeth Yates (NBH)f 203. When the Stars Go Blue - Caridad Ferrer (ARC tour) 204. The Queen of Attolia - Megan Whalen Turner 205. Being Jamie Baker - Kelly Oram (ARC tour) 206. Torment — Lauren Kate (ARC tour) 207. Hope in Patience — Beth Fehlbaum (ARC tour) 208. You - Charles Benoit (ARC tour) 209. The Replacement — Brenna Yovanoff (ARC tour) 210. Room — Emma Donaghue (ARC tour) 211. I'd know you anywhere — Laura Lippman (ARC tour) 212. The King of Attolia — Megan Whalen Turner 213. Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery — Russell Freedman (NBH) 214. Sisters Red — Jackson Pearce (ARC tour) 215. Somewhere in the Darkness — Walter Dean Meyers (NBH) 216. The World Above — Cameron Dokey 217. Love, Inc. - Yvonne Collins & Sandy Rideout (ARC tour) 218. Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath — Stephanie Hemphill (PH) 219. Encyclopedia Brown's Book of Wacky Spies — Donald J. Sobol 220. Star Crossed — Elizabeth C. Bunce (ARC tour) 221. The Trouble with Half a Moon — Danette Vigilante (ARC tour) 222. Lipstick in Afghanistan — Roberta Gatley (Review copy) 223. Hole in my Life — Jack Gantos (PH) 224. The Body Finder — Kimberly Derting 225. Eve's Harvest — Anthology (Odyssey Books) 226. Revolution — Jennifer Donnelly (ARC tour) 227. The Other Side of Dark — Sarah Smith (ARC tour) 228. Angelfire — Courtney Allison Moulton (ARC tour) 229. Tricks — Ellen Hopkins 230. Daughter of Xanadu — Dori Jones Yang (ARC tour) 231. Case Closed? Nine Mysteries Unlocked by Modern Science — Susan Hughes (Review copy) 232. Matched — Ally Condie (ARC tour) 233. Fixing Delilah — Sarah Ockler (ARC tour) 234. Girl, Stolen — April Henry (ARC tour) 235. Pegasus — Robin McKinley (ARC tour) 236. Desires of the Dead — Kimberly Derting (ARC tour) 237. A Conspiracy of Kings — Megan Whalen Turner 238. Anna and the French Kiss — Stephanie Perkins (ARC tour) 239. Babe in Boyland — Jody Gehrman (ARC tour) 240. Cloaked — Alex Flinn (ARC tour) 241. Unearthly - Cynthia Hand (ARC tour) 242. Songs for a Teenage Nomad — Kim Culbertson (ARC tour) 243. The Gift of the Magi and Other Stories — O. Henry 244. Where She Went — Gayle Forman (Antony John) 245. Brooklyn Story — Suzanne Corso (review copy) 246. North of Beautiful — Justina Chen Headley 247. The Memory Bank — Carolyn Coman (GR 1st reads) 248. Willow Run — Patricia Reilly Giff 249. America the Beautiful — Sri Chinmoy (review copy/audiobook) 250. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner — Stephenie Meyer

Today we are pleased to have joining us Marissa Meyer, author of Cinder, a futuristic retelling of Cinderella. Guys! Be excited! Cinder is a 2012 debut, and a little birdie on the inside tells me (Misty) it's fabulous! Make sure to stop back on Friday for a guest post from Marissa!

Now let's get down to business. "Serious" Questions:
~Can you tell us a little bit about Cinder and the series?Gladly! CINDER is a young adult futuristic retelling of Cinderella. In it, Cinder, a 16-year-old cyborg mechanic, must piece together her mysterious past in order to protect her country from an impending war. It's the first in a four-book series, each of which revolves around a different fairy-tale-inspired heroine (Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White), as they join forces to save the world and find their happily-ever-afters. CINDER is scheduled to release in early 2012.

~Why fairy tales? What is it that calls to you, personally, as a writer, and why do you think readers connect to them the way they do?
I’ve always loved fairy tales. When I was growing up, I loved them for the romance, the magical kisses, the dresses, the princes in their fancy castles. Now I’m drawn to them for their timelessness—these are story archetypes that have been retold and recycled in 8 billion different ways, yet authors and artists and movie directors are still coming up with new ways to tell them. And because they still relate to issues that every society deals with, whether it’s childhood neglect a la Hansel and Gretel or just wanting to improve your social status a la Cinderella—these stories hold as much meaning for us now as they did in the time of the Grimm Brothers.

~What’s your favorite scene you’ve ever written? EVER ever? Gosh, that’s a lot of scenes. Can I say every single kiss? I’m a big fan of kissing scenes. The fun part of writing a four-book series with four different heroines who have four different romances is that there’s lot of opportunity for great kissing! Book 2: SCARLET (Little Red Riding Hood) will have some particularly smoldering ones.

Quickfire, Silly and Random stuff:
~Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale? I love this question, because I was tempted at one point to call my Rapunzel character “Arugula”! I ended up settling on “Cress” though, which is also a type of lettuce. If I were in a fairy tale, I think my odd name would be something geeky and literary, like maybe Pencil or Comma.

~ Using that name, give us a line from your life as a fairy tale: The fairy godmother waved her magic wand and Pencil found herself with this a real live book deal—a dream come true! She was about to retire to Hawaii and do nothing but lie on the beach and drink fruity cocktails for the rest of her happily ever after... when it occurred to her that she still had to write the rest of the books. And back to work the princess went.

~Best fairy tale villain and why? I’m partial to Rumpelstiltskin. He’s sly, crafty, can actually spin straw into gold (quite the feat!), and goes after what he wants. I also love that the story leaves open a big mystery: why does he want the queen’s firstborn at all? It could be very cruel and awful (maybe he plans to eat it!) or more sympathetic (maybe he just wants a family).

~Favorite tale from childhood? Favorite tale as an adult? Least favorites? I always loved The Little Mermaid—it was my favorite Disney movie as a kid, and I only fell in love with it more once I read the Hans Christian Andersen version and learned how truly tragic the story was. It has so much depth to it (pun kind of intended). As for now... it’s so hard to choose! Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are probably neck and neck for my all-time favs. As for least favorite... I don’t know that I really have one, although something about the end of Hansel & Gretel always bugged me. I felt like the dad got off way too easy in that tale!

~If you could be any fairy tale character, or live through any fairy tale "happening," who/what would it be? Cinderella’s ball! I love big beautiful dresses and dancing and food!

~Would you rather:
- — live under a bridge with a troll, or all alone in a high tower? Tower, definitely! Just think how much reading you’d get done.

- — ride everywhere in a pumpkin carriage (messy) or walk everywhere in glass shoes (uncomfortable)? I’ll take the carriage, with hopes that the fairy godmother had the sense to scrape all the guts out of it.

- — have a fairy godmother or a Prince Charming? Between getting engaged and getting my book deal for CINDER both in the past few months, I think I already have both!

Thanks so much for the fun interview, Ashley and Misty! Oh course! We were happy to have you, and can't wait for Cinder! Thanks for stopping by! So who else is super excited for Cinder? *raises hand* Stop back on Friday for a special guest post from Marissa Meyer. And don't forget to leave her some love in the comments!

With us now, we have Jaclyn Dolamore, author of Magic Under Glass and the upcoming Between the Sea and Sky. Jaclyn was homeschooled in a hippie sort of way and spent her childhood reading as many books as her skinny nerd-body could lug from the library and playing elaborate pretend games with her sister Kate. She skipped college and spent eight years drudging through retail jobs, developing her thrifty cooking skills and pursuing a lifelong writing dream. She has a passion for history, thrift stores, vintage dresses, David Bowie, drawing, and organic food. She lives with her partner and plot-sounding-board, Dade, and two black tabbies who have ruined her carpeting. So now, I give you, Jaclyn:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The "Serious" stuff:

~ Even if not direct fairy tale retellings, your stories definitely have fairy tale-esque elements. Is this intentional on your part, or just a by-product of the tales you like to tell? Any plans to do a direct retelling?

Well, so far, my intention with any story is to take a period of history and run it through an otherworldly, magical filter. I guess the fairy tale part just comes in as a by-product. Certainly, I read a lot of fairy tales as a child; we had an old book of Perrault stories as well as some of the Lang Fairy Books, Russian tales and Hans Christian Andersen (way to traumatize me as a child, Hans), and I read many retellings. One of my favorite things are stories that mash-up a bunch of tales like the mini-series "The Tenth Kingdom" (seriously, it is so fun, if anyone hasn't seen it yet you should), the musical Into the Woods, or the comic Fables. I always thought that would be fun to do, but I'd have to come up with a new take on it because it's already been done so well by others. I've often thought it would be fun to do a fairy tale retelling, but I'm waiting for the right one to cross my path, something a little creepy but also romantic in just the right way... Of course I've seen a lot of comparisons between Magic Under Glass and Beauty and the Beast so perhaps I DO retell fairy tales in some ways.

~ Your ideas are really original and interesting, with great juxtaposition (a dancer falling for an automaton, a mermaid falling for a winged man, etc): can you tell us a little bit about where these stories come from?

I am a SUCKER for star-crossed romances between two outsiders. Magic Under Stone, of course, continues the Erris/Nimira love story but there is also a jinn whose master pits him against the girl he loves. (To be very vague about it... I don't want to be spoiler-y.) All my books have some element of this and I doubt that will change anytime soon. I am especially attracted to stories about two like minds in unlike bodies... a girl and an automaton, a girl with a fish tail and a boy with wings... I guess they are kind of stories about how human hearts cross boundaries.

~You mentioned in a past interview with another blogger (I’ll link to it) that you wanted to see more Victorian era fantasy, so you wrote Magic Under Glass: what was the research process like for this? Beyond the rest of the Magic series, do you intend to set any more books in the Victorian era, or is there another time period calling your name?

I've always loved the Victorian era, and history in general, and I am a total non-fiction book junkie, especially when it comes to the details of domestic life such as houses, clothes, social mores, etc. so I wrote the first draft of Magic Under Glass without any research. But, the more detail, the better, so I also read many books while writing it, and looked at a lot of period photography of people and places so I could capture details like what you would really see when you walked down the street or what accessories a woman would wear with her dress.

As for other time periods, well, Between the Sea and Sky is set in that world's equivalent of 1800, so it's earlier than Magic Under Glass, and now I am working on a novel based loosely on the 1927 German silent film Metropolis, so the settling is based heavily on Weimar Berlin. Which has proved to be a pain to research. Most books on Weimar Berlin seem geared to really intellectual political or art scholars and as an extra bonus, were translated from German and read very stilted, and it's been hard to find much information on everyday life. Even memoirs and diaries have been kind of hard to find. I've cheated a bit and read a lot about 1920s Paris... There is a silent film called "Berlin: Symphony of a Great City" that is nothing but scenes of everyday life in 1920s Berlin, though, so you do find these little tidbits...

~I know Between the Sea and Sky is a companion novel of sorts to Magic Under Glass, but do you intend it to be a stand-alone, or is it going to spin-off into its own series?

It stands alone. I do have some sequel ideas, although they would focus on characters that are children in Between the Sea and Sky. But whether my publisher would buy a sequel depends on whether the book does well.

~What’s the most challenging aspect of writing for you? And what’s the thing that makes it all worthwhile?

Challenging: There is always a sticky spot somewhere in the middle of a book. Also, endings! Sealing the deal is one of my weaknesses for sure. I don't really LIKE things to end... In my mind my books keep going, but of course I can't write endless sequels to everything, so I have to find a spot to wrap everything up, it's just hard. And action scenes. Augh. As a reader, I usually skim fights and escapes. I wish I could skim them as a writer too...

But except for those occasionally sticky spots, I love every part of writing; the research, the early development, the first page, the part where you really start to know where it's going, the editing, the line editing, the copy editing... And sharing that story with others and hearing from fans is a huge rush, although I have to be careful not to get caught up in advances or awards or fans (or the flipside--the lack of those things) and stay focused on the writing itself.

~What is your writing process like? What do you do to prepare and get yourself in the mood to create worlds?

I'm a workaholic, really. I do take days off. But I feel very guilty about them, unless I take an actual vacation away from home. Even when I'm not writing, I think about both my current project and think ahead to my next project almost constantly. It's a constant struggle not to zone right out of my real life and back into my invented one. One time I was apparently in 7-11 with an old man clad entirely in lime green spandex and I didn't notice. I got to the car and my boyfriend was like, "Did you see that guy in line in front of you and his crazy outfit?" I was like, "Uhh, I was thinking about my characters... " Even as a kid I was like that. I'm just glad I found a way to make a career out of it...

~What’s your favorite scene you’ve ever written?

@_@ Ever?

Boy, that's tough. I do love the climax of Between the Sea and Sky, with its mingled vulnerability and yearning. And kissing and rain. Who doesn't enjoy that mix?

Quickfire, Silly and Random stuff:

~Rapunzel is named after lettuce; what odd thing would you be named after if you were in a fairy tale?
Hmm, not to steal the produce thing, but I could be named after an apple. I think they are nature's most perfect food! Plus they turn up in fairy tales a lot.
~ Using that name, give us a line from your life as a fairy tale:
"When the weather was fine, Jonagold and her sister Gingergold would play in the scrub pine forest, catching minnows in the pond and crawling under the palmettos hoping to spot rabbits, but they never ventured into the swamp, for that was where the fairies lived."
(Note 1: Apples don't make for very good names. Especially if you are trying to find some that match. Note 2: I really did grow up on a 5-acre property in central Florida with a swamp in back and I wouldn't be surprised if some North American breed of fairy lived back there.)

~Best fairy tale villain and why?

Bluebeard. Talk about creep-tacular; it plays to my love of the mysteries behind locked doors, but in a far scarier way than The Secret Garden. The first time you hear that story you NEVER forget it... Although I also love crone archetypes in general which includes a lot of women you wouldn't want to cross paths with like Baba Yaga.

~Favorite tale from childhood? Favorite tale as an adult? Least favorites?

In childhood my favorite tale was in a collection "Princess Tales" by Nora Kramer. I no longer have this book and I'm not sure if it was an original story or based on an older tale; the collection did have The Twelve Dancing Princesses in it so I'm not sure, but I vaguely recall it was about a painter who painted an ugly-but-honest picture of the king or something and was thrown in a prison with a tiny window, but a blackbird would visit him, and in the end just as he was about to be executed the birds saved him. I was enthralled by the poor painter trapped with only one window and the birds rescuing him. I need to get a new copy of that book... As an adult my favorite might be The Seven Swans; I always feel for the poor mute girl weaving shirts of nettles and I always wonder about the brothers who lived as swans and the boy who was left with one wing in the end. I like birds, clearly. There is actually a fairy tale I invented mentioned within Between the Sea and Sky called "The Girl Who Fell in Love with a Bird."

~If you could be any fairy tale character, or live through any fairy tale "happening," who/what would it be?

Fairy tale characters don't have very good lives! I mean, up until the happily ever after part. I guess I'd be Sleeping Beauty because at least she just sleeps through the whole thing. So many of them have to go through a lot of trials; great fun to read about but not much fun to live through.

~Would you rather:
- — live under a bridge with a troll, or all alone in a high tower?
I think I need more information about the troll and what kind of roommate (bridge-mate) he would be before I can decide...

- — ride everywhere in a pumpkin carriage (messy) or walk everywhere in glass shoes (uncomfortable)?
Glass shoes. I already have a heck of a time finding comfortable dressy shoes so maybe it wouldn't be much difference.

- — have a fairy godmother or a Prince Charming?
These quickfire questions are harder than the serious questions!;) Well, I guess, although the term "Prince Charming" sounds shallow, I'd rather have someone to spend my life with than a fairy godmother.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A conversation with Misty and Ashley:

Misty and Ashley: Wow! Jaclyn, you are amazing! We loved the interview!

Ashley: So, Jaclyn's bio mentions that she loves to draw. It would be cruel, would it not, to brag about her mad-drawing skills and not share that with the rest of the world.

Misty: It would be cruel. Too true!

Ashley: So, because Jaclyn has an official saved spot at the 'Fairy Tale Cool Kids Table' and is not, in fact, a cruel person, she has offered up an absolutely stunning giveaway!

Misty: She is providing one lucky winner with hand-drawn bookplates, featuring the main couples from each of her novels. Aren't these covers absolutely stunning?!

Ashley: What must you do to win these bookplates? These hand-drawn bookplates?! It's simple really. You must provide us with unicorn sprinkle cupcakes. (what Misty? Oh... Ooops. Right)

Ahem. To win this one-of-a-kind giveaway, you must leave us a comment. But, not just any comment. Because Jaclyn is putting so much effort into making this giveaway special for you, you must put forth a little effort as well. For any MEANINGFUL comment left on this review, you will be entered to win. If your comment isn't meaningful, I'm going to assume that you don't actually want to win the awesomeness that is these bookplates, and I will NOT enter you into the contest. You must also leave a way for us to contact you, if you are the winner. If I can't contact you, you can't get your prize.

This contest IS open Internationally!
Closes May 5th.

Alright everyone, here it is!

My interview with Jennifer Echols, the wonderful author of Forget You! Click HERE to read my review!

Jennifer was kind enough to agree to an interview after I read and loved Forget You. She is also the author of several other books for teens, including Going to Far, another romantic drama, and several romantic comedies, including Major Crush, and The Ex Games.
You can learn more about Jennifer and her books at her website, found HERE.

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First, I would like to say a huge thank you to Jennifer for agreeing to take part in this interview. It's great to have this chance to talk with you.

Ashley, I really appreciate the interview. Thank you!

So, when did you first start writing stories?

I think I was working on my first novel in third grade or so. My mom was reading Watership Down, which is about rabbits. My novel was about squirrels.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Have you always wanted to be a writer?

I was interested in writing, art, and music, and I pursued all three into college. My first college major was music education and composition. I wanted to be a composer and a high school band director. I was so interested in music intellectually, but I just wasn’t good enough. Writing was a creative outlet I felt much more comfortable with. In fact, I wrote a short story about band for the college literary magazine, people seemed to like it much better than any music I’d ever written, and I never looked back.

Why do you write young adult novels? Was that a conscious choice, or something that just sort of happened?

I finished writing my first novel when I was 20 and still reading YA myself. After that I wrote YA and adult, back and forth, but I guess YA was a part of me when I got my start and I never left. I still think YA novels are some of the best books out there.

Do you have any plans or desire to switch over to the Adult side of the aisle?

Since selling my first YA novel, I have written three adult novels, but they haven’t sold. Every time this happens, it breaks my heart, but publishing is a hard business and I knew this going in.

You already have several published novels out. Both comedic and dramatic. Were there any unique challenges to writing Forget You that you hadn't come across before?

This book is probably the one that’s most personal to me. The characters and events are fictitious, but I have felt all Zoey’s pain before. I have been that good girl who makes bad decisions. So I’m finding it a little harder than usual to share this story and listen to what other people say about it and about her.

Which of your books was the most challenging for you to write?

Endless Summer, because it is a sequel, and everything had to match what I’d written in The Boys Next Door.

Do you ever just sit back and think, "Wow. I'm a writer!"

Yes I do. Every single day I make sure that I reflect on the long, hard road I traveled to get here, and I am thankful that I finally have the career I always wanted.

I love getting new book recommendations. So, I have to ask. What do you read? What are your favorites?

Kiss It by Erin Downing and The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting were absolutely wonderful. And I hope everybody will check out the amazing When the Stars Go Blue by Caridad Ferrer, which is coming out in November. One of the coolest things about being an author is that you get to read other writers’ novels before they’re published!

Are there any books you can identify that have had the most impact on you as a person, and as a writer?

The best class I ever took was an American Moderns course at Auburn University. We read The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner, The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway, A Lost Lady by Willa Cather, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and the collected poems of T. S. Eliot. Every one of these books made me see the possibilities of writing in a new way. The only book we read that wasn’t new to me was The Great Gatsby, and this wonderful professor made even that seem brand new. Have you ever taken a class like that?

Do you have a current work-in-progress? If yes, is there anything you can share with us about it now?

I’m finishing my next romantic drama for MTV Books. It will be published in July 2011, and it is called This Novel Has Such A Fabulous Title That I Can’t Even Tell You, or possibly OMG This Is The Best Novel Title Ever. My editor and I haven’t chosen which one yet but I will let you know.

Well, thank you so much Jennifer for answering all my questions!
My final question, just because I love them, what is your favorite pair of shoes?

In 2005 I ran my first 10K and the end of my middle toe kind of fell off. It was just a really bad blister. So I went to a local running store and said to the owner, “Please choose a pair of shoes for me that will not make my toe fall off,” and he did and I am on my fifth pair. They are Nike Equalons. This is probably not what you were asking, LOL!
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This was an awesome interview! Thanks again Jennifer for taking the time to talk to share with us! I'm looking forward to your new release, and to picking up some copies of your older books. And, if I ever decide to run a 10K, I'm definitely going to be looking for some Nike Equalons!