The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the THE CURSED CARNIVAL AND OTHER CALAMITIES by Roshani Chokshi, J.C. Cervantes, Yoon Ha Lee, Carlos Hernandez, Kwame Mbalia, Rebecca Roanhorse, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Sarwat Chadda, Graci Kim, and Rick Riordan Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

 

THE CURSED CARNIVAL AND OTHER CALAMITIES: New Stories About Mythic Heroes
Author: Roshani Chokshi, J.C. Cervantes, Yoon Ha Lee, Carlos Hernandez, Kwame Mbalia, Rebecca Roanhorse, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Sarwat Chadda, Graci Kim, and Rick Riordan
Release Date: September 28, 2021
Publisher: Rick Riordan Presents
Formats: Hardcover, eBook
Pages: 496

Find it:  Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org

Description:

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents ten new stories--including one of his own--about beloved heroes that sprang from the imaginations of some of the best middle grade authors working today.

A cave monster . . . an abandoned demon . . . a ghost who wants to erase history . . . a killer commandant . . . These are just some of the challenges confronting the young heroes in this highly entertaining anthology.

All but one of the heroes previously starred in a popular book from Rick Riordan Presents. You''ll be reunited with Aru Shah, Zane Obispo, Min the fox spirit, Sal and Gabi, Tristan Strong, Nizhoni Begay, Paola Santiago, Sikander Aziz, and Riley Oh. Who is the new hero? Read Rick Riordan''s short story to find out!

Ten bestselling and award-winning middle grade authors contributed to this collection: Roshani Chokshi, J.C. Cervantes, Yoon Ha Lee, Carlos Hernandez, Kwame Mbalia, Rebecca Roanhorse, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Sarwat Chadda, Graci Kim, and Rick Riordan, who also served as the editor.

The cultures represented by these own-voices stories are: Indian, Mesoamerican, Korean, Cuban, Black American, African, Navajo, Mexican, Mesopotamian, and Celtic.

There’s something for everyone in this collection of fast-paced and funny adventure stories that show what it takes to be a hero in any time, setting, and universe.

The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities is a collection of ten middle grade short stories that feature beloved characters from the Rick Riordan Presents universe in the heart of several different mythological retellings. I personally haven't read any of the books in the Rick Riordan Presents collection but I was still able to enjoy each story for what it was. It would probably be more helpful and fun if the reader was familiar with the characters and their previous adventures before reading this anthology, but I don't think it's necessary.

Each of the ten stories was full of interesting characters who find themselves in some weird and scary situations. They all follow the general hero's quest template and each incorporates mythology as well. Some of the myths were familiar to me and some weren't but I really liked reading each author's reimagining. They were able to intertwine beloved characters and quirky worlds with timeless myths to create something fresh, new, and full of fun. I can't pick a favorite from among them; they each had their own aspects that I loved. I don't read much middle grade fiction but I definitely recommend this book. It's a perfect read for fans of middle grade fiction, fantasy, mythology, children's fiction, young adult fiction, retellings, and readers who are already fans of the Rick Riordan Presents universe.

Click on the links to be taken to their websites!

Roshani Chokshi

J.C. Cervantes

Yoon Ha Lee

Carlos Hernandez

Kwame Mbalia

Rebecca Roanhorse

Tehlor Kay Mejia

Sarwat Chadda

Graci Kim

Rick Riordan

 

(3) winners will win a finished copy of THE CURSED CARNIVAL AND OTHER CALAMITIES - US Only.

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Tour Schedule:

Week One:

9/1/2021	YA Books Central	Excerpt
9/2/2021	Kait Plus Books	Excerpt
9/3/2021	Rajiv's Reviews	Review
9/4/2021	@Curlygrannylovestoread	Review

Week Two:

9/5/2021	#BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee Blog	Review
9/6/2021	A Dream Within A Dream	Review
9/7/2021	Nonbinary Knight Reads	Review
9/8/2021	The Bookwyrm's Den	Review
9/9/2021	Log Cabin Library	Review
9/10/2021	Lifestyle of Me	Review
9/11/2021	Emelie's Books	Review

Week Three:

9/12/2021	@pagesofyellow	Review
9/13/2021	Locks, Hooks and Books	Review
9/14/2021	More Books Please blog	Review
9/15/2021	Little Red Reads	Review
9/16/2021	Don't Judge, Read	Review
9/17/2021	Fyrekatz Blog	Review
9/18/2021	booksaremagictoo	Review

Week Four:

9/19/2021	The Phantom Paragrapher	Review
9/20/2021	BookHounds YA	Excerpt
9/21/2021	Cindy's Love of Books	Review
9/22/2021	dinipandareads	Review
9/23/2021	hauntedbybooks	Review
9/24/2021	Books a Plenty Book Reviews	Review
9/25/2021	Books and Zebras @jypsylynn	Review

Week Five:

9/26/2021	The Momma Spot	Review
9/27/2021	Zainey Laney	Review
9/28/2021	@fictitious.fox	Review
9/29/2021	Two Points of Interest	Review
9/30/2021	PopTheButterfly Reads	Review

Sudden Traveler Blog Tour: Review

Sudden Traveler
Author: Sarah Hall
Release Date: October 8, 2019
Publisher: Custom House
Hardcover: 144 pages 

Description: 

“Sarah Hall is one of those rare writers whose short fiction has the same luminosity as her novels. But the short form allows her more room to probe and roam, to experiment with form, to sink her fingers into the earth.”—The Observer (London)  

Featuring her signature themes of identity, eroticism, and existential quest, the stories in Sarah Hall’s third collection travel far afield in location and ambition—from Turkish forest and coastline to the rain-drenched villages of Cumbria. 

The characters in Sudden Traveler walk, drive, dream, and fly, trying to reconcile themselves with their journeys through life, death, and love. Science fiction meets folktale and philosophy meets mortality. A woman with a new generation of pacemaker chooses to shut it down in the Lakeland, the site of her strongest memories. A man repatriated in the near east hears the name of an old love called and must unpack history’s dark suitcase. From the new world-waves of female anger and resistance, a mythical creature evolves. And in the woods on the border between warring countries, an old well facilitates a dictator’s downfall, before he gains power. 

A master of short fiction, Sarah Hall opens channels in the human mind and spirit and takes us to the very edge of our possible selves.

 
Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Sudden Traveler is a new collection of short stories by award winning author Sarah Hall. This is the first book I've read of hers and happened to be short stories, which aren't always my strong point. I normally don't read short stories because they don't interest me the same way a novel does. I don't like the short amount of time spent with the characters and the plot, along with all the other aspects. So, I did start off with a bit of trepidation towards the book.

I honestly can't clearly tell you how I feel about the individual stories contained in the book. Most were incredibly weird and I was so confused trying to figure out if things were symbolic or not and if things were real or fake. The writing was well done, if you like that type of style. I'm not against it at all, and I think that if the stories had been done in a more common way, then I probably would've had a much better reading experience. That being said, the majority of the stories had me incredibly confused, my mind reeling, and at the end of each story I found myself asking "What in the heck did I just read?" The author's writing style is one that you instantly love or you read it enough times that you adjust to it and can begin to understand it more. However, for a first time reader like myself - not knowing what to expect - I was confused from the first story to the very last one. I don't like the feeling of not knowing what's going on - not like a mystery where you know it has to unravel over time - but just in general not knowing what was what. Was it symbolism? Was it realism? Or science fiction? Or just take it at face value and don't read into it so much. Like I said, this will be a great fit for fans of the author's other works and those who enjoy giving different types of writing a try.

Sarah Hall was born in 1974 in Cumbria, England. She received a master of letters in creative writing from Scotland's St. Andrews University and has published four novels. Haweswater won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (overall winner, Best First Novel) and a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award. The Electric Michelangelo was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Eurasia Region), and the Prix Femina Étranger, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Daughters of the North won the 2006/07 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the James Tiptree Jr. Award, and was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction. How to Paint a Dead Man was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Portico Prize for Fiction. In 2013 Hall was named one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists, a prize awarded every ten years, and she won the BBC National Short Story Award and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Find out more about Sarah at her website, and connect with her on Facebook.

His Hideous Heart Blog Tour: Review

His Hideous Heart
Editor: Dahlia Adler
Genre: YA Anthology/Short Stories/Retellings
Release Date: September 10, 2019
Publisher: Flatiron Books

Description:

The Cask of Amontillado. The Tell-Tale Heart. The Pit and the Pendulum. Filled with love and loss, vengeance and regret, the dark, chilling stories of Edgar Allen Poe have haunted us for over 150 years. Now, thirteen of YAs most celebrated writers reimagine Poe’s stories for a new generation.

These contemporary retellings will grab readers by the throat and drag them along to surprising and unsettling places, whether they are Poe aficionados or new newcomers to these classics. Tiffany D. Jackson, award-winning author of Monday’s Not Coming, transports “The Cask of Amontillado” to the streets of Brooklyn during the present day West Indian Day Carnival in Brooklyn. Poet amanda lovelace finds new meaning in the classic poem “The Raven” by blotting out words from the original lines. And Kendare Blake, New York Times bestselling author of the Three Dark Crowns series, gives the unreliable voice narrating “Metzengerstein” a contemporary edge.

With the original stories printed in the back of the book, HIS HIDEOUS HEART offers up a fun way to meet Poe for the first time, or for readers to revisit old favorites with fresh eyes. His work reminds us why we love to be scared, whether we get that thrill from watching the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, visiting a haunted house at Halloween, or by reading Poe’s spine-tingling stories.  

 

His Hideous Heart is an imaginative YA anthology of retellings from some of the most well known and loved stories of Edgar Allan Poe. I'm an incredibly huge fan of Poe (if you couldn't tell by my blog name!) so I was really excited when I heard about this book. I've read several of the various authors other works and loved them, so I was expecting this to be amazing. I wasn't sure how they would reimagine Poe's tales, but I was excited to find out.

One thing I immediately liked about the book was that it not only contained the retellings but also included the original works by Poe that had inspired the others. It's great for readers that are new to Poe as well as those already familiar with his works but would like a refresher on them and to help compare and/or contrast them with the new reimaginings.  I have both a B.A. and an M.A. in English, so Poe is not only a favorite of mine but one I've studied academically. 

Since this is an anthology, it's a bit unrealistic to expect to love every single story. And I have to admit that my feelings for these tales ranged from really liking them to being a bit upset because I felt the originals were too different to the new ones. I really wanted to love each and every one of these stories, but ultimately I had a mix of reactions and emotions. Some of the ones I really liked were "She Rode a Horse of Fire," "The Glittering Death," "A Drop of Stolen Ink," "Happy Days, Sweetheart," "Changeling," "The Oval Filter," and "Red." They elicited the same feelings as Poe's originals and were both well written and imaginative. I liked the new spin each author brought to the table and each were able to bring their stories to life with lots of vivid imagery and detailed descriptions. I found that the other stories were too far from Poe's originals that I couldn't connect with them and ended up disappointed. 

Also, I felt like there was an overabundance of diverse characters, namely LGBTQ, which felt forced. Please don't get me wrong, I'm all about diverse characters of all kinds and I love to connect with them. But it felt like a lot of these stories were about girls in love - and as I mentioned, it just felt so forced. Like they were written on purpose with these aspects in mind and the tale was kind of secondary. I hope that makes sense. I felt that the characters' relationships overshadowed the main plot of the story (which happens with lots of books I encounter). And being a huge Poe fan, I guess I'm biased toward the actual gothic story and not so much the diversity of the characters and their love interests. Again, I want to reiterate that I'm all for diverse characters of all kinds, but in this specific case, some of them felt forced and ruined the story for me. This is only my personal opinion and definitely not something that other readers will be bothered by. I only want to be honest about how I felt about the stories. That being said, I absolutely loved the concept of the book - particularly because they were based on my favorite classic author and I'm really into retellings. I'd definitely recommend this book to Poe fans old and new, as well as readers who enjoy horror, paranormal, fantasy, science fiction, and romance.

 

Dahlia Adler is an Associate Editor of mathematics by day, a blogger for B&N Teens, LGBTQ Reads, and Frolic by night, and an author of Young Adult and New Adult novels at every spare moment in between. Her books include the Daylight Falls duology, Just Visiting, and the Radleigh University trilogy, and her short stories can be found in the anthologies The Radical Element, All Out, It’s a Whole Spiel, and His Hideous Heart, which she also edited. Dahlia lives in New York with her husband, son, and an obscene amount of books, and can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @MissDahlELama.


Contributors:
Dahlia Adler
Kendare Blake
Rin Chupeco
Lamar Giles
Tessa Gratton
Tiffany D. Jackson
Stephanie Kuehn
Emily Lloyd-Jones
amanda lovelace
Hillary Monahan
Marieke Nijkamp
Caleb Roehrig
Fran Wilde

Nevertheless, We Persisted Blog Tour: Review

Nevertheless, We Persisted: 48 Voices of Defiance, Strength, and Courage
Editor: In This Together Media
Foreward: Amy Klobuchar
Genre: YA Nonfiction/Short Stories/Essays
Release Date: September 4, 2018
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers 

Description:

A powerful collection of essays from actors, activists, athletes, politicians, musicians, writers, and teens, including Senator Amy Klobuchar, actress Alia Shawkat, actor Maulik Pancholy, poet Azure Antoinette, teen activist Gavin Grimm, and many, many more, each writing about a time in their youth when they were held back because of their race, gender, or sexual identity--but persisted.

"Aren't you a terrorist?" "There are no roles for people who look like you." "That's a sin." "No girls allowed." They've heard it all. Actress Alia Shawkat reflects on all the parts she was told she was too "ethnic" to play. Former NFL player Wade Davis recalls his bullying of gay classmates in an attempt to hide his own sexuality. Teen Gavin Grimm shares the story that led to the infamous "bathroom bill," and how he's fighting it. Holocaust survivor Fanny Starr tells of her harrowing time in Aushwitz, where she watched her family disappear, one by one.

What made them rise up through the hate? What made them overcome the obstacles of their childhood to achieve extraordinary success? How did they break out of society's limited view of who they are and find their way to the beautiful and hard-won lives they live today? With a foreword by Minnesota senator and up-and-coming Democratic party leader Amy Klobuchar, these essays share deeply personal stories of resilience, faith, love, and, yes, persistence.  

 

Nevertheless, We Persisted is exactly what it's title says: stories about hate and prejudice and how these people overcame their obstacles with strength, courage, and defiance. I'm not normally a YA contemporary person - especially not nonfiction, but I'm glad I gave this book a shot because it really opened my heart and my eyes. We all go about our daily lives with problems that bother us - some small and others large - and we can decide to let them win or we can defeat them. I can personally relate to this as I suffer from mental illness, which feels like a never-ending battle every single day of my life. The stories I read about were from people of different ages, religions, nationalities, sexual preference, etc. but they all had the same thing in common - rising above the hate and prejudice. How they managed to stand up and stay strong during difficult times. I honestly can't imagine how I would react if I were put in most of these situations. It's hard to think about them really happening to people, and honestly, it makes most of my problems seem so small and insignificant in comparison. I'm not going to review each of the forty-eight stories, but everything I've said applies to each of them. It's a bittersweet combination of the horrible things these people went through and the fantastic ways they decided to overcome them. I highly recommend this book for readers of all ages and all genres. It will resonate with everyone and I truly believe we need to open our eyes and hearts to these types of situations. I know it did that for me. Also, definitely recommended for readers looking for stories containing diverse characters.

 

The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway

Blog Tour: November 1 - December 17, 2016

 

The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets
Author: Sophie Hannah
Genre: Short Stories, Thriller
Published by: Witness Impulse
Publication Date: October 11th 2016
Number of Pages: 120
ISBN: 9780062562098

Links: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Goodreads

Description:

A collection of ingenious suspense stories from one of today's most acclaimed novelists in the genre. Everybody has their secrets, and in Sophie Hannah's fantastic stories the curtains positively twitch with them. Who, for instance, is the hooded figure hiding in the bushes outside a young man's house? Why does the same stranger keep appearing in the background of a family's holiday photographs? What makes a woman stand mesmerised by two children in a school playground, children she's never met but whose names she knows well? And which secret results in a former literary festival director sorting soiled laundry in a shabby hotel? All will be revealed…but at a cost. As Sophie Hannah uncovers the dark obsessions and strange longings behind the most ordinary relationships, life will never seem quite the same again.

The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets is a thrilling collection of short stories that will leave readers wanting more. I normally don't read short stories because it never feels like enough time to really develop deep characters or intricate plot lines - especially since some of my favorite genres are thrillers and mysteries. I recently read and reviewed another collection of short stories by this author, and I enjoyed them enough that I decided to give this collection a try. I'm so glad that I did - they were definitely worth it! 

Each one had great main and secondary characters and suspenseful plots that had me engaged right from the beginning. Once again, I loved that I could read one story at a time, in between my hectic schedule, and not be worried about forgetting where I was at or what was happening in the story wherever I happened to leave off. The author has a fantastic amount of talent that is easily seen even in short stories. I definitely recommend this author and book for fans of the genre and for readers who enjoy suspense and mysteries!

Sophie Hannah is the New York Times-bestselling author of numerous psychological thrillers, which have been published in 27 countries and adapted for television, as well as The Monogram Murders, the first Hercule Poirot novel authorized by the estate of Agatha Christie.

Catch Up with Sophie Hannah on her Website, Twitter, or Facebook.

 

  This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Sophie Hannah and Witness Impulse. There will be (5) US winners of one (1) eBook copy of The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets by Sophie Hannah. The giveaway begins on November 1st and runs through January 2nd, 2017.

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Tour Participants:

 

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