About Whisper of the Tide
Caro Oresteia spent her life waiting to be called by the river god, as those in her family had been for generations. But when she’s swept away on an adventure to save the Akhaian royal prince, Markos, her destiny is sealed by the sea god instead.
For now, Caro is landlocked, helping Markos reclaim his throne after nearly his entire family was assassinated in a political coup. Without any financial or military support, Markos is desperate for allies, and Caro has fought off more than one attempt on his life. When a powerful Archon offers his army in exchange for Markos’s marriage to his daughter, Caro must choose: Her love for Markos, or the fate of Akhaia? And more importantly: How much is she willing to risk to defy the sea god’s wishes and chart her own course?
With shipwrecks, lost treasure, old and new enemies, dark magic, and breathtaking romance, Sarah Tolcser weaves another epic story about chasing your fate.
My Review I forgot how much I love Caro’s character in this series. She’s so spunky and strong. All the sailing stuff and love for ships and such make Whisper of the Tide a fun read, too. It’s all my favorite things about Pirates of the Caribbean but tossed with some political intrigue and additional strong female characters. Delicious!
It always makes me nervous to read the sequel to a book I loved. I’m always torn because I want to know what happens next, but I’m so afraid it won’t be as good as the first book and will somehow diminish my good memories. No worries here. Whisper of the Tide stands alone as a great love story and a tale about how you have to understand who you are before you can hope to have a happy romantic relationship. It’s very different than Song of the Current, but I really enjoyed the high adventure and race against assassins. I’m so glad I read it. Unfortunately, it does have some references to sex (see below for details), so some sensitive readers may want a heads up on that. The tone and scope of the story will probably appeal more to older readers. You can find my review of Song of the Currenthere.
Recommended for Ages 16 up.
Cultural Elements
Caro has brown skin and red hair—an oddity where she lives.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Infrequent use of strong profanity.
Romance/Sexual Content Kissing between boy and girl. Two scenes show Caro and Markos getting into bed. One cuts to the next morning, letting us know they had sex without showing anything. The other gives some limited details.
Spiritual Content Caro has been chosen by the god of the sea, and then asked to make a choice between her calling and her life with Markos. The sea god is a capricious one, who has destroyed followers who’ve disappointed her in the past. Caro’s cousin has learned some magic associated with stealth and assassination.
Violent Content Some combat between Caro and enemies involving knives and guns.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
I’m excited to share some questions and answers with Song of Blood and Stone author Leslye Penelope with you today. Let me first tell you a little bit about Song of Blood and Stone and then we’ll get to the Q&A.
Song of Blood and Stone
Leslye Penelope
St. Martin’s Press
Publishes May 1, 2018
About Song of Blood and Stone A treacherous, thrilling, epic fantasy about an outcast drawn into a war between two powerful rulers.
Orphaned and alone, Jasminda lives in a land where cold whispers of invasion and war linger on the wind. Jasminda herself is an outcast in her homeland of Elsira, where her gift of Earthsong is feared. When ruthless soldiers seek refuge in her isolated cabin, they bring with them a captive–an injured spy who threatens to steal her heart.
Jack’s mission behind enemy lines to prove that the Mantle between Elsira and Lagamiri is about to fall nearly cost him his life, but he is saved by the healing Song of a mysterious young woman. Now he must do whatever it takes to save Elsira and it’s people from the True Father and he needs Jasminda’s Earthsong to do it. They escape their ruthless captors and together they embark on a perilous journey to save Elsira and to uncover the secrets of The Queen Who Sleeps.
Thrust into a hostile society, Jasminda and Jack must rely on one another even as secrets jeopardize their bond. As an ancient evil gains power, Jasminda races to unlock a mystery that promises salvation.
The fates of two nations hang in the balance as Jasminda and Jack must choose between love and duty to fulfill their destinies and end the war.
Author Q&A with Leslye Penelope
What inspired you to write this series? What came first: The characters or the world? What was your inspiration for the magic of Earthsong? Were you inspired by other books? Movies?
When I first wrote this book, up until the time I gave it to my first editor, I thought it was going to be a novella. It was always meant to be a fairytale-esque story of a girl’s journey from the margins of society straight to its upper echelons. The characters Jack and Jasminda were there before the world was ever clear in my mind. The first scene I wrote was the one where they meet in front of her cabin. I knew they were from different, warring countries and they came from very different sorts of lives, but that was all. Through the magic of revision (lots and lots of revision) I discovered the journey that the characters would go on and all the conflicts they would face.
I love fantasy and there were so many inspiring series that I soaked in prior to writing the book, from Graceling by Kristin Cashore to Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. But I think this book owes its biggest inspiration to the Lumatere Chronicles by Melina Marchetta. Her fantasy world felt well realized and complex, filled with incredibly detailed characters, groups, nations, and settings. But I also wanted to write a kinder, gentler fantasy novel that wouldn’t double as a doorstopper. And mix in a really strong romance like some of my favorites Nalini Singh or Kresley Cole.
What were your favorite scenes to write for SONG OF BLOOD AND STONE? What was the hardest scene to write? Is there a scene or moment that really sticks with you?
Though Usher, Jack’s valet, spends relatively little time on the page, I loved writing the scenes with him and Jack. When two characters have known each other for a long time, it can be really fun to play with how to show their relationship. Usher has known Jack his entire life and so the way they interact is unique. I also loved writing the visions that Jasminda gets from the stone. They were in a different voice, from a totally different perspective and the peeked in on a vibrant, fully formed world that’s different to the one of the main story. Hardest to write were the ones where Jasminda is confronted with the racism and bias of Elsirans.
The scene that sticks with me is when Jack and Jasminda are in the army base and he sleeps on the ground beside her, holding her hand. I find it really sweet and romantic.
What advice would you give aspiring authors, especially authors or color, striving to have their stories and truths shared?
I would tell aspiring authors to really investigate your goals and be frank with yourself about why you want to do this. It’s a difficult path emotionally, creatively, and professionally and what will get you through the low points is being very clear about your “why”. It can also be incredibly rewarding, but knowing what you’re getting yourself into is key.
Writing and publishing are two different disciplines. Your “why” will inform whether you pursue traditional publishing or seek to self-publish. It will keep you going through rejections, delays, bad reviews, disappointment, and the imposter syndrome that we all go through.
The other very important thing is to have a community to fall back on. Whether that’s a chapter of a professional organization like RWA, SFWA, SCWBI, and others, or a Facebook group, critique group, or writer’s circle, having others to commiserate and celebrate with you makes the journey much easier.
Is there a character in SONG OF BLOOD & STONE that you most relate to? How do you select names of your characters?
I think Jasminda represents various aspects of myself both as I am and as I’d like to be. She’s definitely bolder than I am, but her struggle to feel a part of things is one that I understand.
As for naming my characters, for each nation, I asked questions about how the names should generally work. Things like: which prefixes and suffixes are common? Which letters and sounds are prevalent? Which letters or sounds either don’t exist or are more rare? So the Elsirans have a lot of double vowels in their names. Qs, Vs, and Zs are prominent, but there are no hard Cs.
Lagrimari names generally don’t use Js. I set up which suffixes were for men and women and the types of sounds the names would have. There are only 9 last names in Lagrimar, corresponding with the Houses. Jasminda as a name is an exception. Her parents didn’t follow the naming conventions of either country for her or her brothers. Because their interracial relationship was unique, they wanted their children’s names to be distinctive as well.
What do you most hope that readers take away from SONG OF BLOOD AND STONE?
I really just hope readers enjoy the story and the characters. Jasminda is a heroine that I had been longing to see, so I hope people get as much joy and heartache from her story as I did when I wrote it.
Can you tell us more about the next books in the series? What are you working on now?
Book 2, WHISPERS OF SHADOW & FLAME, follows a parallel timeline to SONG. It’s about Darvyn, a character we hear about in SONG who was the Earthsinger responsible for disguising Jack. The disguise’s failure gets Jack captured and he wonders what happened to Darvyn. So in WHISPERS, we find out. But it also pushes the story forward, showing what’s going on in Lagrimar in the days before the Mantle comes down and setting up the next challenge that Jack, Jasminda, and Darvyn will face.
Book 3, CRY OF METAL & BONE picks up the story of how Elsira and Lagrimar deal with the fall of the Mantle and the new threat facing the nations.
I’m also working on a brand-new series with dragons J.
What are your favorite books you would recommend to readers?
Among my favorites of all time are Wild Seed by Octavia Butler, The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay, Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta, Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover, Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor and Sheltered by Charlotte Stein. I could go on and on, but I’ll leave it there.
If you could be any character in any book, who would you choose, and why?
That’s a tough one, because characters in good books really go through the ringer and I wouldn’t knowingly sign up for any of that. One of the characters I most admire is Evanjalin from Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta. She amazed me and I would at least like to be her friend and siphon some of her personal strength and adaptability, if not actually walk in her shoes.
Leslye Penelope has been writing since she could hold a pen and loves getting lost in the worlds in her head. She is an award-winning author of new adult, fantasy, and paranormal romance. She lives in Maryland with her husband and their furry dependents: an eighty-pound lap dog and an aspiring feral cat.
About Catching Fire
Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol – a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.
Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she’s afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she’s not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol’s cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can’t prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.
My Review
I feel like The Hunger Games is a hard act to follow. In that first book, the whole idea of the Arena, the districts and Capitol were so stark and fresh. In Catching Fire, we already acclimated to the brutality and high stakes of Katniss’s world. So only the plot events can be fresh and new.
I thought the characters, in particular the other victors, added a lot to the story. They were very different from each other and different than the tributes Katniss faced in the Arena in The Hunger Games. Katniss and Peeta’s complementary strengths carry into this book, too. His love for her and his savviness with understanding emotions and motives, which Katniss is pretty much blind to, and her ability to solve puzzles and survive dictate their ability to survive the traps the Capitol sets for them. It also makes them a great couple, even if Katniss stays a bit slow to realize what her true feelings are regarding Peeta and Gale.
Side note: I’ve never liked those names—Peeta and Gale. They both seem kind of feminine to me. The names, not the characters. But it has never bothered me enough to interfere with my ability to read and enjoy the books.
In the first book, Katniss uses physical strength to survive the Arena. Here, she has to rely more on her ability to solve puzzles and choose the right allies. I liked the message, again, that violence isn’t the answer. That instead, cleverness and unity can destroy a powerful enemy.
I’ve listened to Catching Fire as an audiobook at least twice, but I think more often than that. I feel like it’s rare for me to find a dystopian series that I like all the way through where the story, characters, and premise all have equal weight and draw. This one probably tops that list for me. Right up there with Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series.
Recommended for Ages 12 up.
Cultural Elements
Central characters are white.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content Katniss and Peeta spend nights together sleeping and comforting one another through nightmares. No sexual contact. At one point Peeta claims he and Katniss have married in secret and she’s pregnant.
Spiritual Content None.
Violent Content Tributes fight in the arena, killing one another. Some brief, graphic descriptions.
Drug Content
Haymitch spends a lot of time drunk. Katniss and Peeta both squirrel away some liquor for him in case there’s ever a shortage (since it’s against the law to make or sell), which is a pretty enabling thing to do. After receiving some terrible news, Katniss drinks some of the liquor with Haymitch and gets pretty drunk herself.
Valor risks everything to protect her friends in this second book in a thrilling fantasy series that’s Percy Jackson meets Frozen.
One month has passed since Valor broke her twin sister Sasha out of jail. But the girl who imprisoned her to begin with—Princess Anastasia—has gone missing. The queen, desperate to find her daughter, asks Valor and Sasha to track Anastasia down and bring her home.
But just as the girls and their friends embark on the search, the queen also vanishes, throwing the realm into utter chaos. If Valor can’t restore order, she risks getting sent back to prison . . . and tearing her newly reunited family apart once again. She must rely on people she can’t quite trust, as well as her own instincts, to protect the people she holds dear.
My Review
“Percy Jackson meets Frozen” is a great description of Seeker of the Crown. Two sisters with very different roles and talents team up with a couple of outlaws awaiting pardons to save their kingdom from a rebel princess who means to take all for herself.
The action never lags—from the first page to the last, Valor runs from one challenge to the next as the stakes get higher and higher. This plus the clear, smooth writing makes this book a quick, fun read.
Valor’s tenacity and independence set her up as a strong heroine. She struggles to trust others and depend on them for help. But when her impulsive actions get her into trouble, she has to accept that she can’t do things totally alone.
I liked that the two sisters were so different. Valor’s point-of-view leads us through the story, but we learn a lot about her relationship with her twin, Sasha. While Valor is impulsive and a fighter, Sasha is a thinker and more rules-oriented.
The only hiccup for me was that the girls are only thirteen. The story world describes them as basically being adults—beginning apprenticeships and having a lot of independence—but I found it hard to get my head around that sometimes. I don’t think there was anything wrong with it, I just struggled to connect with them as such young characters. I kept thinking they were fifteen or sixteen.
On the whole, Seeker of the Crown is a great adventure, and except for some mild-ish violence, it’s clean! I think fifth and sixth grade readers would enjoy it most, but the style of the storytelling should make it appealing to some older readers, too. I’m so glad I got to read it, and now I want to go back and read the first book. I had no trouble following the second book without reading the first one, but I’m interested in the story enough to want to know how it all started.
Recommended for Ages 8 up.
Cultural Elements
The characters and story setting have a Russian/Scandinavian feel to them.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content None.
Spiritual Content None.
Violent Content Valor remembers her captivity in a terrible prison (where she had been wrongfully imprisoned) and makes some references to torture. I’d describe these references as dark but not graphic. They focus on her mental and emotional scarring rather than physical harm.
Battle scenes show soldiers in combat. Valor defends herself with a crossbow and is prepared to shoot enemies.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
My Review If you’re part of the YA community at all, chances are you’ve heard about or already read this book. It’s been on my list to read since before it came out, and I’ve finally managed to get a copy. Once I had THE HATE U GIVE in hand, it didn’t take me long to read it.
One powerful part of the story is the way it puts faces and names on an issue too often in the headlines. We see not only Starr, a young high school student with her whole life ahead of her, but also her loving family, and the community around her. And we see these elements not only for her but for Khalil, the boy killed by police, as well. We learn about his mistakes, but we also learn that those things aren’t the whole of who he is. We learn about why he made some of those choices, and it doesn’t make them less wrong, but it does make the truth more complicated.
One of the issues that comes up with regard to this book is how much profanity is included in the story. In a Twitter post, Angie Thomas talked about this issue, and said she hoped people would see the story and be moved by the importance of it rather than getting hung up on the language.
And while I absolutely appreciate what she’s saying—because the book does talk about a critical issue in an incredibly powerful way—I also understand that including so much strong language will prevent some people from reading the book and will give ground for some schools to opt not to carry it in their libraries. It may keep the story out of some of the hands of people who most need to read it. And I find that frustrating and sad.
I loved this story. It moved me. It made me connect with characters deeply. It made me realize that while I’ve been outraged and upset about police brutality, it’s been on an issue level—I’ve objected to ideas like racism and profiling and injustice. THE HATE U GIVE made me think about aspects I hadn’t faced or had only vaguely considered, made me think about the communities affected by police brutality and the friends and family members left behind. It made me see the victims as not simply blurbs in headlines, but as complex people. It showed the ripple effects of police brutality through a whole community.
Reading THE HATE U GIVE made me think about another story I’ve read called PIECING ME TOGETHER by Renee Watson. It also made me wonder what the novel would have looked like if it had been from Starr’s friend Kenya’s perspective. Her father is a local gang leader who abuses her mother. I don’t mean this as a criticism of the story at all. Telling it from Starr’s point-of-view really showed the tug-of-war in her life between the black community where she lived and the white community where she went to school, which was a powerful element. But I hope that someone tells Kenya’s story, too.
Content Notes
Recommended for Ages 14 up.
Cultural Elements Starr and her family are black. Starr dates a white boy, but hasn’t told her dad yet. Her best friends at school are white and Asian.
Profanity/Crude Language Content Extreme profanity used frequently.
Romance/Sexual Content References to making out, kissing between a boy and girl. Starr’s boyfriend asked her to have sex with him, but she refused, and was angry at him for even bringing it up. Later, she initiates some sexual contact (hand under clothes) but stops.
Spiritual Content Starr’s family prays together on multiple occasions.
Violent Content Starr hears gunshots at a party she’s attending and later learns someone was killed there. She witnesses police shoot her unarmed friend after pulling him over. Gang members threaten and attack a local business man and a young gang member. Starr doesn’t see the attacks, but does see the resulting injuries. Starr’s half-brother, Seven, worries about his mom, who continually lets a man live with her even though he beats her.
Protests turn violent. Protesters damage police cars, businesses, etc. Starr and her friends are upset and believe that only makes the conflict worse.
Drug Content Teen drinking at the party Starr attends at the beginning of the book. She smells pot smoke there, too.
About More Than We Can Tell
Rev Fletcher is battling the demons of his past. But with loving adoptive parents by his side, he’s managed to keep them at bay…until he gets a letter from his abusive father and the trauma of his childhood comes hurtling back.
Emma Blue spends her time perfecting the computer game she built from scratch, rather than facing her parents’ crumbling marriage. She can solve any problem with the right code, but when an online troll’s harassment escalates, she’s truly afraid.
When Rev and Emma meet, they both long to lift the burden of their secrets and bond instantly over their shared turmoil. But when their situations turn dangerous, their trust in each other will be tested in ways they never expected.
My Review I loved Letters to the Lost, which was Kemmerer’s debut novel, and as soon as I heard that one of the characters from that story—Rev—would be starring in his own companion novel, I knew I had to get ahold of a copy. Then once I got the copy in my hands, I worried about how it would stack up to Letters. I know—I always do this. So finally, I broke down and started to read.
And even though I’m still not getting a lot of sleep with my new littlest one underfoot, I could not put this book down. If I didn’t read it in one sitting, I read it in two. I flew through the pages.
Getting to know more about Rev and his history and getting to see him confront his inner demons sucked me straight into the heart of this tale. I also love that it features not only a hardcore gamer girl, but one who coded her very own online video game! Go, girl! The experiences she describes as a player—the way some other players say ugly things or harass her—is terrible but too true. I can’t help but hope that a story like this will continue to bring light to these situations and start some conversations or change some hearts.
Brigid Kemmerer is quickly becoming one of those authors whose books I want to pre-order as soon as the option becomes available. I loved both Letters to the Lost and More than We Can Tell and I absolutely can’t wait to see what story she tells next.
Recommended for Ages 12 up.
Cultural Elements
Rev is part of a multi-racial family. He’s white and his (adoptive) parents are black. Other characters are white.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Moderate profanity used fairly infrequently. Rev himself feels negatively about cursing.
Romance/Sexual Content Emma receives threatening emails which contain sexual innuendo. Kissing between boy and girl. A man attempts to assault a girl.
Spiritual Content Rev was raised by an abusive father who misused scripture as an excuse to torture him. Nevertheless, he still feels a close bond with the Bible, though we more often see him use it to govern his behavior rather than as a source of comfort. Rev meets a girl outside a church several times, which also carries this unspoken feeling that he feels safe near religious things.
Violent Content Rev shares brief memories of physical abuse at the hands of his father: a forced tattoo, a burn, broken arm, etc. One scene shows a man slamming a girl’s head against a car window and attempting to assault her.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
