Winter Falls Blog Tour: Dream Cast, Review + Giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the official blog tour for Winter Falls by Nicole Maggi! Today I have my review of the book along with the author's dream cast - and don't forget to enter the giveaway! To follow the rest of the tour, click on the banner above!

Winter Falls (Twin Willows Trilogy #1)

Author: Nicole Maggi

Genre: YA Fantasy/Paranormal

Release Date: December 22, 2014

Publisher: Medallion Press

Description:

Alessia Jacobs is a typical sixteen-year-old, dying to get out of her small town of Twin Willows, Maine. Things look up when a new family comes to town, but when she falls for the hot, mysterious son, Jonah, her life turns upside down.

Weird visions of transforming into an otherworldly falcon are just the beginning. Soon she learns she’s part of the Benandanti, an ancient cult of warriors with the unique power to separate their souls from their bodies and take on the forms of magnificent animals.

Alessia never would’ve suspected it, but her boring town is the site of an epic struggle between the Benandanti and the Malandanti to control powerful magic in the surrounding forest.

As Alessia is drawn into the Benandanti’s mission, her relationship with Jonah intensifies. When her two worlds collide, Alessia’s forced to weigh choices a sixteen-year-old should never have to make. 

Can I just say how fun it was to spend an entire afternoon poring over IMDB, casting WINTER FALLS? Great way to get out of writing while still doing work, LOL! 

 ALESSIA - Hailee Steinfeld 

JONAH - Richard Harmon 

 HEATH - Hunter Parrish 

LIDIA - Maya Sansa 

BREE - Lucy Hale 

NERINA - Gemma Arterton

(she appears in a photograph in WINTER FALLS and becomes a major character in the 2nd & 3rd books in the series)

Winter Falls is the first book in an exciting new young adult paranormal trilogy that follows the heroine, Alessia, as she goes about her boring life in her small town of Willow Falls, Maine. Nothing ever happened here - good or bad - there was no excitement to speak of. Until the Wolfe family moves to town and Alessia finds herself falling for Jonah - the mysterious and hot son of the powerful family. As if this wasn't enough excitement, Alessia soon begins having visions of becoming an otherwordly falcon. Confused and scared, she searches for answers and discovers that she is a part of the Benandanti, an ancient group of warriors who have the power to separate their souls from their bodies, and then transform into animals. Alessia also discovers that there has been a war between the Benandanti and the Malandanti for centuries - each group wanting to have control over the magic that's in the forest near Alessia's house. As she and Jonah grow closer, Alessia's mission with the Benandanti grows more serious - and finally the two sides of her life collide. Now she's faced with making decisions that nobody her age should ever have to make.

I haven't read a shapeshifter book in quite awhile and I was excited to get back into the genre. On the surface the book might sound like a regular story about shapeshifters and magic, but once you start getting into the main plot of the book, it's plain to see that there's a lot more going on than I thought. I loved learning all about the Benandanti - their history, mission, and what they stand for - of course, I also loved learning the same things about the opposing group, the Malandanti. I found the details and descriptions about both group - their histories, the war between them, the magic that they're fighting over - to be really fascinating. I'm really hoping that we get to learn more in the next two books. Alessia was a great main character for the book. She's smart, strong, down to earth, and determined. Once she realizes who and what she is - and what's happening - she's faced with making some incredibly difficult decisions, which I thought she did with a great amount of maturity. Of course, I loved watching Alessia and Jonah together and seeing their relationship change and grow throughout the book. The story was told at a good rate - not too fast to confuse the reader, and not too slow to make it boring either. The writing was well done and I found myself easily sliding into the world the author created along with identifying with the characters on a personal level. Overall, I think this is a solid first book in a promising new YA trilogy that has lots of potential to become amazing. I definitely recommend it to fans of the genre as well as those who enjoy fantasy and paranormal fiction.

Nicole was born in the suburbs of upstate New York, and began writing poems about unicorns and rainbows at a very early age. She detoured into acting, earned a BFA from Emerson College, and moved to NYC where she performed in lots of off-off-off-Broadway Shakespeare. After a decade of schlepping groceries on the subway, she and her husband hightailed it to sunny Los Angeles, where they now reside, surrounded by fruit trees, with their young daughter and two oddball cats. Her TWIN WILLOW TRILOGY launches this December from Medallion Press; the first book is WINTER FALLS. Her standalone YA thriller THE FORGETTING will be released in February 2015 from SourceBooks Fire.  

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(1) Winner will get a $50 Powell’s Book Store Gift Card (if the winner resides out of the US, they will be receive $50 PayPal Cash)

(1) Winner will get the opportunity to name a character in Nicole Maggi’s in the next book she writes! 

Must be 13+ To Enter | See Terms & Conditions in entry form for shipping restrictions and more info. 

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