Shannon Muir Reviews The Gift

The Gift (Enhanced Ebook Edition)

Andrea J. Buchanan

Publisher: Open Road Media
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1453220232
ISBN-13: 978-1453220238

Kindle ASIN: B006X7ZU2C

This reviews the media-added ebook version of a tale originally released by Open Road Media last year, in which a young woman named Daisy discovers she has electrically charged powers. Managing those powers and keeping them secret has ended up getting her in trouble and shuttled from school to school. Being asked by one of her teachers to help out a fellow student named Vivi forces her hand, as Vivi claims to have a guardian angel who feeds of Daisy’s energy. Eventually Daisy’s best friend gets pulled in, as well as the teacher’s assistant Kevin, to who Daisy finds herself mysteriously attracted. What follows is a mystery of dreams, past lives, and breaking free to build one’s own future. There are really two strong plots here – Daisy, Vivi, Danielle and the past lives dreams mysteries is one, and a girl with electrical powers struggling to have a boyfriend and a normal life as the other. Daisy’s powers, while part of what it takes to get the past lives story moving, feels forced at points though overall its a fun journey.

BEA Author Breakfasts & The Harlem Shake

My friends at Book Expo America are a little excited about the upcoming Author Breakfasts…

Take a look at just how excited they are. Even my old friend Steve Rosato is dancing (he’s the guy in the suit). I’d be dancing too if I got to have breakfast with these authors.

Buy tickets and find out more about the BEA Author Breakfasts here.

¡Ban This! Tucson Festival of Books Panel Discussion

DARK HORSE ANNOUNCES WONDERCON ANAHEIM 2013 SCHEDULE!

Dark Horse Comics is headed to California’s must-attend event on the comic book convention schedule – WonderCon Anaheim!

Join us for signings at booth #819! Free comics and/or prints with each signing while supplies last.

Tickets for signings at the Dark Horse booth will be distributed from the opening of WonderCon on Friday, March 29. Please note that lines may be capped or tickets issued for any signing as needed. Inquire about your favorite signings as early as possible. Some restrictions apply. All events are subject to change.

Comics, books, and collectibles will be available for purchase from Dark Horse or your favorite retailer.
DARK HORSE SIGNINGS

FRIDAY, MARCH 29

12:00 p.m. BEANWORLD signing with creator Larry Marder

-Free Beanworld action figures and sketch cards

2:00 p.m. CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT signing with writer Josh Williamson

-Free 11” x 17” print featuring art by Felipe Massafera

3:00 p.m. AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER signing with writer Gene Yang

-Free 5.5” x 8.5” print featuring art by Gurihiru

TICKETED EVENT

5:00 p.m. STAR WARS: DAWN OF THE JEDI signing with inker Dan Parsons

-Free Dawn of the Jedi #1 while supplies last

6:00 p.m. USAGI YOJIMBO/47 RONIN signing with creator Stan Sakai

-Free 47 Ronin #1

Check out the Usagi Yojimbo: Way of the Ronin iOS game

SATURDAY, MARCH 30

10:00 a.m. HUSBANDS signing with cocreators Jane Espenson and Brad Bell

-Free 5.5” x 8.5” print featuring art by Ron Chan

11:00 a.m. NUMBER 13 signing with artist/writer Robert Love and writer David Walker

-Free Number 13 comic

12:00 p.m. AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER signing with writer Gene Yang

-Free 5.5” x 8.5” print featuring art by Gurihiru

TICKETED EVENT

1:00 p.m. X signing with artist Eric Nguyen

-Free 11” x 17” print featuring art by Eric Nguyen

2:00 p.m. BUFFYVERSE signing with artist Georges Jeanty, writer Andrew Chambliss (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and writer Christos Gage (Angel & Faith)

-Free Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 and Angel & Faith comics, Angel and Spike buttons, and Whedonverse wristbands

3:00 p.m. STAR WARS signing with artist Carlos D’Anda and colorist Gabe Eltaeb

-Free 5.5” x 8.5” print featuring a dramatic panel by Carlos D’Anda and Gabe Eltaeb from the upcoming Star Wars #4 issue

TICKETED EVENT

4:00 p.m. THE TRUE LIVES OF THE FABULOUS KILLJOYS signing with creator Gerard Way

-Free 5.5” x 8.5” print featuring art by Becky Cloonan

TICKETED EVENT

SUNDAY, MARCH 31

10:00 a.m. THE ART OF REMEMBER ME signing with DONTNOD art director Aleksi Briclot, DONTNOD creative director Jean-Max Moris, and Capcom producer Mat Hart

-Free 11” x 17” The Art of Remember Me print

11:00 a.m. MIND MGMT signing with creator Matt Kindt

-Free 11” x 17” MIND MGMT print

12:00 p.m. STAR WARS: DARK TIMES signing with writer Randy Stradley

-Free Star Wars: Dark Times—Fire Carrier #1

1:00 p.m. THE LAST OF US signing with Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann

-Free 11” x 17” print featuring art by Julián Totino Tedesco from the upcoming comic The Last of Us: American Dreams

3:30 p.m. STAR WARS: LEGACY VOLUME II signing with writer/artist Gabriel Hardman and writer Corinna Bechko

TICKETED EVENT * Limit five comics per person

DARK HORSE PANELS

FRIDAY, MARCH 29

12:30 p.m.–1:30 p.m. Avatar: The Search for Zuko’s Mom, Room 208AB

1:30 p.m.–2:30 p.m. Geek & Sundry Panel of Awesome, Room 300DE

SATURDAY, MARCH 30

1:30 p.m.–3:00 p.m. Comics Arts Conference Session: Focus on Matt Kindt, Room 210BCD

2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: From Comic to Music and Back Again! Room 300AB

6:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m. Buffy Season 9: The Final Arc! Room 207BCD

SUNDAY, MARCH 31

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Spotlight on Jane Espenson with Brad Bell, Room 207

2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. Star Wars Comics in 2013! Room 207 BCD

Random House Children’s Books to Release Robert Cormier’s Award Winning Classics as eBooks

The Chocolate War, I Am the Cheese and others will be available as eBooks on March 19, 2013

New York, NY (March 19, 2013)— Beverly Horowitz, VP & Publisher, Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers, announced today that Robert Cormier’s classic young adult novels will be released in eBook format for the first time. Horowitz believes that “for Robert Cormier there were no taboos. What mattered was the way that difficult topics were handled. These dynamic novels still speak to readers and are now more relevant and accessible than ever.” Cormier’s novels have delighted, challenged and generated discussion among readers for more than 30 years in print, and now they will be available to a new generation of readers as eBooks. The new editions will be available March 19th wherever eBooks are sold.

Random House will launch the program with twelve titles: Fade, Heroes, In the Middle of the Night, Tunes for Bears to Dance To, We All Fall Down, After the First Death, 8 Plus 1, Beyond the Chocolate War, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway, I Am the Cheese, The Chocolate War and Tenderness. Knopf Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, publishes Robert Cormier’s classic novels in hardcover, and the Ember and Laurel-Leaf imprints will continue to publish his trade paperback editions.

A tireless warrior in the crusade for realistic young adult fiction, Cormier not only changed the landscape of young adult literature but also pushed the boundaries of what could be discussed in the classroom. He was ahead of his time in dealing with issues of bullying and the importance of independent thought. “I take real people and put them in extraordinary situations,” he said in an interview with School Library Journal. “I’m very interested in intimidation. And the way people manipulate other people, [as well as] the obvious abuse of authority.”

In 1974, The Chocolate War, was published to instant critical praise and secured Cormier a perennial spot in the annals of classic teen fiction. The New York Times praised its “powerful integration of the personal, political and moral.”

Robert Cormier is the recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award honoring his lifetime contributions in writing for teens, for The Chocolate War, I Am the Cheese and After the First Death. He was born, and lived the entirety of his life, in Leominster, Massachusetts. As a freshman at Fitchburg State College, Cormier published his first short story, The Sign, in a national Catholic magazine. After a brief stint scripting radio commercials after college, Cormier went on to become an award-winning journalist and author. Despite his fame, he never stopped writing for his local newspaper, The Fitchburg Sentinel.

Alfred A. Knopf Books For Young Readers | March 19, 2013 | $7.99 | Ages 12 and up

Tenderness

9780385729871

The Chocolate War

9780307834294

I Am the Cheese

9780307834287

The Bumblebee

Flies Anyway

9780307834270

Beyond the

Chocolate War

9780307834263

8 Plus 1

9780307834256

After the First Death

9780307834249

We All Fall Down

9780307549075

Tunes for Bears

to Dance To

9780307548443

In the Middle

of the Night

9780307532527

Heroes

9780307530813

Fade

9780307523310

Random House Books for Young Readers is an imprint of the Random House Children’s Books division of Random House, Inc., whose parent company is Bertelsmann. Visit us on the Web at RandomHouseKids.com.

Get the latest updates and news from Random House Children’s Books!

Follow us on Twitter: @RandomHouseKids

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/randomhousekids

The Cats of Tanglewood Forest

The Cats of Tanglewood Forest
Charles de Lint (Author), Charles Vess (Illustrator)
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316053570
ISBN-13: 978-0316053570

The Cats of Tanglewood Forest is a fairytale that reads like those old epic stories that tell of someone seemingly ordinary, but who has an extraordinarily kind heart. In the old stories, that was your hero who went on a long quest, filled with adventure, mystery and danger. At the heart of this tale is Lillian, a red-headed girl who loves to run and play in the forest, seeking out fairies and daydreaming under trees. She’s close to the earth and her kindness shows. She has respect for nature, respect for magic and is a lover of tales. You immediately love her and are drawn into her world with the beautiful writing of Charles de Lint, an expert at telling tales. His words paint a vivid and marvelous world full of magic. Charles Vess’ artwork, as always is dreamy, lush and gorgeous. His colors and brushstrokes pull you farther into this world that seems so real. The story makes you feel at home and it also takes you back into your childhood, reminding you of those hours you spent curled up with an old fairytale adventure, being transported into that world.

The Emperor of All Things

Author: Paul Witcover
Publisher: Random House UK, Transworld Publishers
Bantam Press

Book Description from the publisher:
Tempus Rerum Imperator: Time, Emperor of All Things

1758. England is embroiled in a globe-spanning conflict that stretches from her North American colonies to Europe and beyond. Across the Channel, the French prepare for an invasion ? an invasion rumored to be led by none other than Bonnie Prince Charlie. It seems the map of Europe is about to be redrawn. Yet behind these dramatic scenes, another war is raging – a war that will determine not just the fate of nations but of humanity itself…

Daniel Quare is a journeyman in an ancient guild, The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. He is also a Regulator, part of an elite network within the guild devoted to searching out and claiming for England’s exclusive use any horological innovation that could give them an upperhand, whether in business or in war.

Just such a mission has brought Quare to the London townhouse of eccentric collector, Lord Wichcote. He seeks a pocket watch rumoured to possess seemingly impossible properties that are more to do with magic than with any science familiar to Quare or to his superiors. And the strange
timepiece has attracted the attention of others as well: the mysterious masked thief known only as Grimalkin, and a deadly French spy who stop at nothing to bring the prize back to his masters. Soon Quare finds himself on a dangerous trail of intrigue and murder that leads far from the world he knows into an otherwhere of dragons and demigods, in which nothing is as it seems . . . time least of all.

****************

Be prepared for lush, evocative language that makes you want to linger on the page, hesitant to turn to the next just so you can savor it. Paul Witcover’s prose is poetic and beautiful. I fell so deeply in love with the language, with the construction of his sentences that I almost forgot to read the story. Almost. There is a STORY here. A great one really. One that has you as riveted and extraordinarily fascinated with the workings of clocks.

“The ticking of so many timepieces, no two synchronized, filled the space with a facsimile of whispered conversation, as if some ghostly parliament were meeting in the dead of night.”

The fantastical England Wicote writes of is completely wonderful, an 18th century England that you completely believe in. You could swear you read about the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in a long-forgotten history book and you’ll be scratching your head wondering just where. It is the kind of book that grabs you and makes you a part of its world. It’s clever, intricate and maddening in its twists and turns, as mazelike as the tunnels Quare is led through under the streets.

AUTHORS AND BOOKS ARE ANNOUNCED FOR BEA’S EDITORS’ BUZZ FORUMS

AUTHORS AND BOOKS ARE ANNOUNCED FOR BEA’S
EDITORS’ BUZZ FORUMS

Three Separate Buzz Panels for Adult, Young Adult, and
Middle Grade Titles

Norwalk, CT, March 5, 2013: BEA has just revealed the authors and books that have been selected for this year’s BEA Editors’ Buzz Forums. Three separate committees of booksellers, librarians and other industry professionals have reviewed the numerous submissions in each category and voted for this year’s final selections. The highly anticipated Buzz Forums are among the most notable and significant platforms for launching new books and creating awareness for noteworthy titles and authors at BEA. Insightful and passionate, the forums typically attract a large audience of booksellers and media who are eager to hear about, and then talk about, the new titles which have been singled out for discussion and presentation.

As has been the custom for the past several years, BEA will present three separate panels, including Adult Editors’ Buzz, Young Adult (YA) Editors’ Buzz, and Middle Grade Editors’ Buzz. The Buzz panel presentations, which feature book editors discussing the individual selections, will be supplemented with an Author Stage appearance for the chosen authors.

The BEA Editor’s Buzz Forums and book selections are as follows:

ADULT EDITORS’ BUZZ

BEA Adult Editors’ Buzz
Wednesday, May 29
4:15pm – 5:30pm
Room 1E14/1E15/1E16

BEA Editors’ Buzz Adult Books – Author Stage
Thursday, May 30
10:00am – 10:30am
Downtown Stage

All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior
Publisher: Ecco
Publication Date: January 2013

Knocking on Heavens Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death by Katy Butler
Publisher: Scribner
Publication Date: September 2013

Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
Publisher: Crown
Publication Date: August 2013

The Affairs of Others: A Novel by Amy Grace Lloyd
Publisher: Picador
Publication Date: August 2013

Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Date: October 2013

The Facades by Eric Lundgren
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Publication Date: September 2013

YOUNG ADULT (YA) EDITORS’ BUZZ

BEA YA Editors’ Buzz
Thursday, May 30
10:00am – 10:50am
Room 1E14/1E15

BEA Editors’ Buzz YA Books – Author Stage
Friday, May 31
10:00am – 10:30am
Uptown Stage

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication Date: September 2013

Tandem by Anna Jarzab
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: October, 2013

All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill
Publisher: Hyperion
Publication Date: September 2013

Entangled byAmy Rose Capetta
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
Publication Date: October 2013

If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan
Publisher: Algonquin Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: August 2013

MIDDLE GRADE EDITORS’ BUZZ

BEA Middle Grade Editors’ Buzz
Friday, May 31
11:00am – 11:50am
Room 1E12/1E13

BEA Editors’ Buzz Middle Grade Books – Author Stage
Friday, May 31
1:00pm – 1:30pm
Uptown Stage

A Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates #1: Magic Marks the Spot by Caroline Carlson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: September 2013

Counting By 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Publisher: Dial
Publication Date: September 2013

The Fantastic Family Whipple by Matthew Ward
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: August 2013

Nick and Tesla’s High-Voltage Danger Lab by Bob Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith
Publisher: Quirk
Publication Date: November 2013

The Time Fetch by Amy Herrick
Publisher: Algonquin Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: August 2013

For more information about BEA please visit the website at www.bookexpoamerica.com. You can also connect with BEA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

ABOUT BOOKEXPO AMERICA:
BookExpo America (BEA) is North America’s largest gathering of book trade professionals attracting an international audience. It is organized with the support of association partners including the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the American Booksellers Association (ABA). BEA is recognized for the media attention it brings to upcoming books as well as for the notable authors it attracts to the convention itself.

BEA (Book Expo America) Author Breakfast Lineup

BEA has announced their line-up for author breakfast and I’m uber excited!

Thursday, May 30
Adult Book & Author Breakfast | 8:00 am – 9:30 am | Special Events Hall
Chelsea Handler
Ishmael Beah
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Wally Lamb

Friday, May 31
Children’s Book & Author Breakfast | 8:00 am – 9:30 am | Special Events Hall
Octavia Spencer
Mary Pope Osborne
Rick Riordan
Veronica Roth

Saturday, June 1
Adult Book & Author Breakfast | 8:00 am – 9:30 am | Special Events Hall
Chris Matthews
Helen Fielding
John Lewis
Diana Gabaldon

Open Road’s Oscar Trivia Challenge and a Challenge to Readers

The glitz, the glamour, the gowns: no other celebrity-studded event captivates our attention quite like the Oscars^®. This year’s Academy Awards ceremony airs on February 24 and Open Road is counting down to Oscar with a special Oscar Trivia series, leading up to the big show (and a big prize for one lucky winner!)

Open Road is sharing two Oscar-related trivia questions a day up until the ceremony on February 24. Watch our Facebook page (facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia) at 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM daily (EST) for the questions. Anyone who comments with the correct answer will be entered to win the grand prize: a digital copy of each of the 30 Oscar-related ebooks featured in the trivia questions. So far, the list includes such iconic classics as From Here to Eternity, Kramer vs. Kramer, Born on the Fourth of July, The Color Purple, and more. (You can see some of the trivia we’ve already covered here, on our blog.)

How many of these books have you read?  Tell me about it in the comments.  Make sure you Retweet or share Open Road’s Facebook post about the upcoming trivia campaign, or link back to their blog post about it.

Here’s a hint of what Open Road is offering as a prize: