Cover Reveal: The Evolution of Mara Dyer (#2) by Michelle Hodkin

It's the cover we've all been waiting for since last year's stunning The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin.

If you need a reminder:

A thing of beauty

After many minutes of rabid refreshing, Simon and Schuster finally unveiled book 2, The Evolution of Mara Dyer (hitting shelves October 23 aka TOO FAR AWAY):

First of all, YAY they kept the same theme and photographer! The underwater theme is dark and haunting, just like the first book. I also love how they seem to be images in a sequence. It has evolved (cough) from them holding each other, to them being ripped apart but straining to hang on.

I also kind of love how you never get to see their faces. It keeps the air of mystery, and is also fitting since "Mara Dyer" is writing her story under a pseudonym (to protect the guilty?)

I also love the shift in color. Book one was green, and book two is blue... which seems darker and sadder to me.

Also, in case you missed it in all the cover excitement, there's a synopsis on Goodreads!

Two days after Mara walks into a police station in Miami at the close of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, she is committed for psychiatric treatment for what her parents believe is a mental breakdown. But what seems like a hallucination to everyone else is a chilling reality for Mara. Someone from her past has discovered her strange, disturbing secret and that someone wants her to pay. But she's about to discover that the price is more than she can bear.

Dark and thrilling, suspenseful and passionate, The Evolution of Mara Dyer will have readers breathlessly turning pages to find out what will become of Mara Dyer next.

Yes yes yes! Gimme gimme gimme! The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer was my most anticipated read last year, and The Evolution of Mara Dyer holds that title this year. This series is AH-MAZ-ING, and if you haven't read book one yet, what on earth are you waiting for?!

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is on sale for $6.80 on Amazon!

The Evolution of Mara Dyer is available for preorder now!

How about you? What do you think of the newest cover in this stunning series?

Giveaway Winners!

There are several giveaway winners that have not been announced, though they've been contacted. So without further ado...

The winner of The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa is...

Lexie@BookBug!

The winner of Perception (Clarity #2) by Kim Harrington is...

MarthaE!

The winner of The Way We Fall by Megan Crewe is...

brookea_2006!

The winner of Dragonswood and Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey is...

Bella!

The winners of signed Mara Dyer bookmarks are....

Amber, Nikki A, and Diana!






Congrats, winners! Please check your email if you have not already responded. I'll have to do another giveaway for the remaining bookmarks soon :)

Introducing Myself

Hellloooooo Bookish Type readers!! I want to start my VERY FIRST POST by saying that I feel incredibly honored to be co-reviewing with Casey, and I’m SO EXCITED about it!! THANK YOU all for your welcoming comments on the post she wrote introducing me! I definitely feel the love. I remember when she first began her blog; it’s amazing to see how much it has grown, and I can’t wait to be part of it. 

Like Casey said, we met at engineering camp way back in the day, oh how things change. Although, I seem to remember that we spent our lunches debating about whether or not Snape was truly on the good side, so maybe our English major selves were emerging even then. 

Pretty much everything you need to know about me is in the About Us section or can be found on my Twitter.  Two additional things that you probably noticed while reading this: I use way too many exclamation points, and I capitalize entire words when I’m excited (which is pretty often).  Oh well! Anyway, I just wanted to say hello to you guys and let you know how eager I am to get started! 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask! I’ll answer comments here or on Twitter. If you have any advice, feel free to post that as well! I'd love any feedback! (There I go with the excessive exclamation points..)

A New Reviewer!

The blog has been quiet lately for a variety of personal reasons, but that will be changing! I've said before that I'd love to have a co-blogger here at The Bookish Type, and my wishes have been granted. My lovely, real-life friend Brittany is coming on board!

Brittany and I have known each other since we were 11 or 12, when we met at an engineering camp. Now we're both graduating English majors. It happens.

We like a lot of the same things (Orlando Bloom, Gilmore Girls, Starbucks... books, obviously) and a lot of different ones (she likes snow and, after 4 years living in New England, I will never like snow again), so it's a perfect match. She reads more high fantasy than I do, and I read more YA than she does. I think this will expand the range of what gets reviewed here, and also help keep the blog active and the review pile under control. I cannot tell you guys how excited I am to have her on board. She's awesome and I know you'll love her.

She'll probably be popping up to introduce herself, either in a post or on the About Us page. Keep an eye out for Britt's first review, coming soon to a blog near you! ;)

ETA: You can now find her on Twitter @freeverse2032!

PS -- If anyone who runs a blog with a co-blogger has advice on how to stay organized, please share your tips!

Q&A with Julie Kagawa (The Immortal Rules)

Julie Kagawa was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos, and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn’t getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish, and the odd eel.

When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her Math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time, but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a real job.

To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dogtrainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full-time.

Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks are at an all time low. She lives with her husband, two obnoxious cats, one Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and the latest addition, a hyper-active Papillon puppy.

Today, we have a fun Q&A with bestselling author Julie Kagawa about her newest novel, The Immortal Rules, courtesy of Media Masters Publicity!

After writing the Iron Fey series for so many years, how difficult was it to immerse yourself in a futuristic world filled with vampires, rabids and an enslaved human race?

It was...very different. I think the hardest thing for me was the fact that this story does take place in the real world -- a futuristic, vampire-infested world, but the real world nonetheless. Things had to make sense, for example: how far can a large group walk in a single day if there were no roads, they were going through thick woods, and there were children in the group? I had to have logical reasons for everything; I couldn't just make something work "because of faery magic," lol.

Just like Meghan Chase in the Iron Fey series, the main character in The Immortal Rules, Allison Sekemoto, is a “take charge and kick butt” kind of girl. Is this intentional? What woman – real or fictional, alive or deceased – do you look up to or admire?

Yes, Allison comes from a very different world than Meghan Chase. Meghan's upbringing was pretty normal; Allison grew up among vampires and monsters, where every day was a fight to live, so she couldn't afford to be weak. While Meghan had to learn to "take charge and kick butt," Allison's first impulse is stab first, talk later.

As for female role models, the first that comes to mind--when it comes to kicking vampire butt, anyway -- is Buffy Summers. Thank you, Joss Whedon, for making me love feisty, snarky, heroines who can dust all sorts of nasties but who also look good in a cheerleading outfit. ;)

You mention in your acknowledgements in The Immortal Rules that at the beginning of your writing career you promised yourself you wouldn’t write a vampire book. What changed your mind?

Well, there were already so many really good books about our favorite bloodsuckers, so many stories and ideas, I thought I didn't have anything new to add to the masses. I was actually toying with a post-apocalyptic YA novel when my agent mentioned I might want to try writing a vampire series. I wasn't intrigued with the idea at first, but then I thought about combining vampires with the post-apocalyptic novel and then rest sort of fell into place.

Allison claims she hates vampires and believes they are monsters yet when faced with a choice of die or become one, she becomes a vampire. Would you have made that same decision?

Me personally? No. I'm like Zeke in the belief that there is something better waiting for me beyond this life, and I just have to do my best until it’s time for me to go. Besides, I love pizza and Mountain Dew too much to give it up.

Who do you think the most complex character is in The Immortal Rules?

Probably Kanin, Allie's sire. He's a vampire who has made his peace about being a monster, yet chooses to live by his own set of moral rules. He warns Allison about getting too close to humans, yet he does not kill unless he absolutely has to. He is tormented about something in his past that he refuses to share with anyone. He is certainly the most mysterious of all the characters, if not the most complex.

How many books will be in the Blood of Eden series? When will the next book be coming out?

At the moment, there are three books planned, with the second coming out sometime next spring, after the release of the new Iron Fey series this fall.

Before you started writing full time you were a professional dog trainer. Do the professions share any similarities?

Lol, well you have to think on your feet a lot. And some of the small dogs could be compared to tiny snapping goblins, but writing requires less dodging skills, though perhaps the same amount of creativity and problem solving.

When starting a new series, like Blood of Eden, do you have the entire series mapped out in detail or do you let the story develop book by book?

I have a high point that I write toward in each story; I know this and this has to happen, but getting from point A to point B usually develops as I go along.

And for the speed round:

What book have you read and re-read, and read yet again? 

Any of the Harry Potter books.

Favorite song to play when writing a fight scene?

My "favorites" change daily. Right now its "Awake and Alive" by Skillet.

Worst job?

Working a kiosk in the mall during Christmas. It sold glass figurines, and the maneuvering space around the hundreds of very breakable merchandise was quite small. I was like a bull in a china shop.

Best vacation spot?

Walt Disney World

Sweets or salty?

Sweet.

One thing most people don’t know about you – and would never guess!

I used to play the flute when I was a kid. I was really good at it too, but my instructor stopped teaching to have a family, and I never went back to it.

For more about this author, please visit:

Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook

Preorder / Add it on Goodreads

Coming April 24, 2012!

In a future world, Vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity.

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.

Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them. The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked—and given the ultimate choice. Die… or become one of the monsters.

Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend—a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

But it isn't easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what—and who—is worth dying for.

Also, don't forget to check out my review and enter to win a finished copy of The Immortal Rules!

Review & Giveaway: The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

Release Date: April 24, 2012
Series: Blood of Eden #1
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Preorder: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

In a future world, Vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity.

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.

Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them. The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked—and given the ultimate choice. Die… or become one of the monsters.

Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend—a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

But it isn't easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what—and who—is worth dying for.

The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa is a gripping blend of paranormal and post-apocalyptic horror. The outlook is bleak for the scattered humans living in the Fringe, where the spectre of starvation pales in comparison to the constant threat of thirsty vampires hidden in the shadows and their even more grisly cousins, the rabids. The rabids are a testament to Kagawa's limitless dark imagination. They are mindless killing machines with sharp claws, sharper teeth, and an unquenchable thirst for blood -- but without the sleek gentility of a normal vampire. This world is truly the stuff of nightmares.

Allison Sekemoto is a survivor, hardened by the grim realities of her daily life. She is cynical and stoic -- or at least she tries to be, but even the constant threat of impending death (or worse) can't quite keep her from seeing the good in the few remaining humans. However, Allie soon finds herself one of the creatures she despises, but rather than letting the struggle turn to angst, she carries on. Kagawa doesn't shy away from the troubling realities of vampirism, and it is fascinating to see Allie struggle with the newfound darkness in her own nature. Readers will never lose sympathy for this hungry girl who chose life over the unknown abyss of death, and resolutely faces the consequences of that fateful choice.

Allie meets quite a few characters on her journey, spanning the range of humanity -- from staggeringly naive teenagers to men more dangerous than the monsters they fear. Thankfully, Kagawa turns the clichéd setup on its head: rather than the helpless human among supernatural men, Allie is powerful, strong, and haunted by demons of her own. It is refreshing to see the heroine struggle to protect these fragile humans -- especially one innocent boy -- from herself, rather than the opposite scenario usually found in paranormal YA.

Allie can't help but be attracted to Zeke, who is almost too good to be true and the polar opposite of everything the vampires represent: hope, light, compassion and kindness. The Immortal Rules is not paranormal romance, and their relationship is tense and uncertain throughout much of the novel. However, Zeke's faith provides an excellent foil for Allie's cynicism, and the potential is there for their attraction to evolve into star-crossed love as the series progresses.

At times, though, the novel feels meandering. The narrative drive is unclear and episodic, trailing behind Allie as she aimlessly wanders through the desolate countryside. There is a great deal of exposition that will hopefully be tightened in the final version to keep up Kagawa's usual thrilling pace while still giving readers a crash course on this brave new world.

The Immortal Rules is a solid setup for a series unlike anything else on the shelves. Kagawa took this tale in directions woefully unexplored in the vampire lore that came before. I cannot wait to see how the significance of the title, hinted at in this first installment, plays out throughout this utterly unique series. Kagawa has a flair for taking staid tropes and molding them into exciting new mythologies, and The Immortal Rules won't disappoint even her most rabid fans.

Rating:

Disclosure: I received an advance galley from the publisher for an honest review.

GIVEAWAY

Thanks to Harlequin Teen and Karen at Media Masters, one (1) lucky reader will win a finished copy of The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa!

To Enter:

• Leave a thoughtful comment on this review with your email address so I can contact the winner
• US and Canada only -- prize will be shipped by the publicist
• Ends 4/17 at 11:59 pm EST
• One (1) winner will be randomly chosen
• Subscribing and tweeting/facebooking are appreciated, but not required
• Please review my giveaway policy
• Extra entries are available -- please leave your total in the comments along with relevant usernames

Extra Entries:

• +1 Like Julie Kagawa on Facebook
• +1 Follow Julie on Twitter
• +1 Follow Julie's Blog
• +1 Follow HarlequinTeen on Facebook
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Come back tomorrow for a Q&A with New York Times Bestselling Author Julie Kagawa!