UKYA in August

I know that I say this absolutely every single month, but I feel like this month it is even more appropriate... where on earth has this year gone? It feels like this year is flying by at a very uncomfortable rate.  The only good thing that I can about this is that least another month is here which means more amazing UKYA hitting the shelves!

And man, is August an exciting month for UKYA?! I am incredibly fortunate that I will be taking part in three blog tours this month - Cruel Summer by James Dawson, Lockwood and Co by Jonathan Stroud and Night School: Fracture by CJ Daugherty, all of which I'm sure will be absolutely incredible.  I also have many of the other books from this list on my TBR shelves/Kindle eagerly awaiting ... including The Weight of Souls, Rolling Dice, Cross My Heart, Winter Damage and Ghost Hawk.  If any of you lucky souls already have a copy of The Sound, do look out for my quote! I'm very proud of that.

These are the UKYA books which I've come across which are being published this month. I'm sure I haven't managed to list them all. If you know of any that I have overlooked, please do let me know. After you've gone through them, please leave a comment telling me which books you're most looking forward to! :)

The Weight of Souls by Byrony Pearce (1st August, Strange Chemistry)

Sixteen year old Taylor Oh is cursed: if she is touched by the ghost of a murder victim then they pass a mark beneath her skin. She has three weeks to find their murderer and pass the mark to them – letting justice take place and sending them into the Darkness. And if she doesn’t make it in time? The Darkness will come for her…

She spends her life trying to avoid ghosts, make it through school where she’s bullied by popular Justin and his cronies, keep her one remaining friend, and persuade her father that this is real and that she’s not going crazy.

But then Justin is murdered and everything gets a whole lot worse. Justin doesn’t know who killed him, so there’s no obvious person for Taylor to go after. The clues she has lead her to the V Club, a vicious secret society at her school where no one is allowed to leave… and where Justin was dared to do the stunt which led to his death.

Can she find out who was responsible for his murder before the Darkness comes for her? Can she put aside her hatred for her former bully to truly help him?

And what happens if she starts to fall for him?

Cross My Heart by Carmen Reid (1st August, Random House)

Brussels, 1940. Fifteen-year-old Nicole watches as the Nazis invade Belgium. Determined not to stand by as her country is brought to its knees, Nicole vows to fight back and joins the Belgian Resistance. Under her new alias - Coco - Nicole embarks on a dangerous new life as a spy, where the only question is not if you'll be caught, but when...

Rolling Dice by Beth Reekles (29th August, Random House)

The second cool, sexy YA romance novel from seventeen-year-old Wattpad sensation and author of The Kissing Booth, Beth Reekles.

They say that the higher you climb, the harder you fall - and Madison Clarke will do anything to keep her new life from crumbling to pieces. Moving from a small town in Maine to Florida, Madison grasps the opportunity to reinvent herself, to forget about those days of being a lonely, loser outcast, and jumps at the chance when the popular kids decide to take her under their wing. A hot boyfriend, parties, friends... If only there wasn't the slight problem by the name of Dwight, a cute, funny and totally nerdy guy in Madison's physics class who she can't help but enjoy spending time with. Running from her past and stumbling through the present, who knows what lies ahead in this new life in Florida?

The Glass Republic by Tom Pollock (1st August, Jo Fletcher Books)

Pen’s life is all about secrets: the secret of the city’s spirits, deities and monsters her best friend Beth discovered, living just beyond the notice of modern Londoners; the secret of how she got the intricate scars that disfigure her so cruelly – and the most closely guarded secret of all: Parva, her mirror-sister, forged from her reflections in a school bathroom mirror. Pen’s reflected twin is the only girl who really understands her.

Then Parva is abducted and Pen makes a terrible bargain for the means to track her down. In London-Under-Glass looks are currency, and Pen’s scars make her a rare and valuable commodity. But some in the reflected city will do anything to keep Pen from the secret of what happened to the sister who shared her face

Control by Kim Curran (1st August, Strange Chemistry)

Scott Tyler is not like other teenagers. With a single thought he can alter reality around him. And he can stop anyone else from doing the same.

That's why he's so important to ARES, the secret government agency that regulates other kids like him: Shifters.

They've sent him on a mission. To track down the enigmatic Frank Anderson. An ex-Shifter who runs a project for unusual kids - as if the ability to change your every decision wasn't unusual enough. But Anderson and the kids have a dark secret. One that Scott is determined to discover.

As his obsession with discovering the truth takes him further away from anyone he cares about, his grip on reality starts to weaken. Scott realises if he can't control his choices, they'll control him.

Love in Revolution by BR Collins (1st August, Bloomsbury)

Esteya is fifteen. As war rumbles closer, Esteya's brother - an important figure in the Revolutionary Communist Party - is able to protect their family from the worst of the privations of war. Then Esteya meets an extraordinary girl, Skizi, an outcast, shunned by all. But Esteya and Skizi are drawn to each other. Slowly and wonderfully love blossoms ... And then Esteya's family are betrayed and forcibly taken away. Skizi disappears. Esteya is left deserted, heartbroken and in terrible danger. But she must find a way to escape - and to find Skizi.

Cruel Summer by James Dawson (1st August, Indigo)

A year after Janey’s suicide, her friends reunite at a remote Spanish villa, desperate to put the past behind them. However, an unwelcome guest arrives claiming to have evidence that Jane was murdered. When she is found floating in the pool, it becomes clear one of them is a killer. Only one thing is for certain, surviving this holiday is going to be murder…

A compelling and psychological thriller - with a dash of romance.

Earth Star by Janet Edwards (15th August, Harper Voyager)

Sequel to Earth Girl.

18-year-old Jarra has a lot to prove. After being awarded one of the military’s highest honours for her role in a daring rescue attempt, Jarra finds herself – and her Ape status – in the spotlight. Jarra is one of the unlucky few born with an immune system that cannot survive on other planets. Derided as an ‘ape’ – a ‘throwback’ – by the rest of the universe, Jarra is on a mission to prove that Earth Girls are just as good as anyone else.

Except now the planet she loves is under threat by what could be humanity’s first ever alien contact. Jarra’s bravery – and specialist knowledge – will once again be at the centre of the maelstrom, but will the rest of the universe consider Earth worth fighting for?

Lockwood and Co: The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud (29th August, Random House)

A Problem has occurred in London: all nature of ghosts, haunts, and spirits are appearing throughout the city, and they aren't exactly friendly. Only young people have the psychic abilities required to see - and, hopefully, eradicate - the supernatural enemies. Many different Psychic Detection Agencies have cropped up to handle the dangerous work, and they are in fierce competition for business.

In THE SCREAMING STAIRCASE, the plucky and talented Lucy teams up with Anthony, the leader of Lockwood & Co, a small agency that runs independent of any adult supervision. After an assignment leads to both a grisly discovery and a disastrous end, Lucy, Anthony, and their wise-cracking colleague, George, are forced to take part in the perilous investigation of one of the most haunted houses in England: Combe Carey Hall. Will Lockwood & Co. survive the Hall's legendary Screaming Staircase and Red Room to see another day? How did the Problem originate, and how can it be solved?

Winter Damage by Natasha Carthew (1st August, Bloomsbury)

On a frozen Cornish moor, a fifteen-year-old girl lives in a trailer with her dad and little brother. Ennor's mother left years ago, when things started to go wrong - and gradually their world has fallen apart. Now her father's gravely ill, school has closed, and Ennor knows they're going to take her brother away if things don't pick up soon. So three days before Christmas, when the wind is cold and her dad's health takes a turn for the worse, Ennor packs a blanket, a map, a saucepan and a gun into her rucksack, and sets off to find her mum and bring her home. Ennor thinks she knows where she's going. But this journey will change her life for ever - it becomes a battle for survival, a heartbreaking story of love and friendship, and a fable about not finding what you were looking for, but finding something more important instead . . .

Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper (29th August, Random House)

In the winter of his eleventh year, Little Hawk goes deep into the forest, where he must endure a three-month test of solitude and survival which will turn him into a man.


But outside the woods, the world is changing. English settlers are landing on the shores of the New World, and tensions between native tribes and the invaders are rising.


Little Hawk's fate becomes irreversibly entwined with that of John, a young English boy who dares to question intolerance. He is witness to a secret murder - will he now be witness to bloodshed between nations?

Night School: Fracture by CJ Daugherty (15th August, Atom)

Devastated by the loss of her friend and under constant threat from an unknown spy at Cimmeria Academy, Allie Sheridan is finding it hard to cope.

In Fracture, the third book in the Night School series, she’s not the only one losing it – everything is falling apart. And when Nathaniel begins to reveal his game plan, Isabelle starts to lose control.

As the school slides into a deadly morass of paranoia and suspicion, everyone is guilty until proved innocent. Anyone can be held without proof, and convicted without a trial. No one is safe.

This time Nathaniel doesn’t need to hurt them. This time they’re hurting themselves.

The Sound by Sarah Alderson (1st August, Simon and Schuster)

When aspiring music journalist Ren Kingston takes a job nannying for a wealthy family on the exclusive island of Nantucket, playground for Boston's elite, she's hoping for a low-key summer reading books and blogging about bands. Boys are firmly off the agenda.

What she doesn't count on is falling in with a bunch of party-loving private school kids who are hiding some dark secrets, falling (possibly) in love with the local bad boy, and falling out with a dangerous serial killer...

The gripping new stand-alone novel from the author of Hunting Lila.

Linked by Imogen Howson (1st August, Quercus)

The Bourne Identity meets Inception in this futuristic YA thriller.

For years, Elissa has suffered nightmarish visions and unexplained bruises. Finally, she's promised a cure, and an operation is scheduled. But on the eve of the procedure, Elissa discovers the truth: she's seeing the world through another girl's eyes. A world filled with wires, machines and pain. Elissa follows her visions, only to find a battered, broken girl. A girl who looks exactly like her. A twin she never knew existed. Elissa and her twin Lin go on the run, but even after changing their looks and clothes, they're barely a step ahead of the government agents who are ruthlessly tracking them down. For Lin and Elissa are too valuable to let go, and the dark truth at the heart of it all is too shocking to risk exposing...

Soul Storm by Kate Harrison (1st August, Indigo)

Someone is stalking Alice Forster. She's sure it's her sister's murderer, but her parents think she's cracking under the stress of Meggie's death. Only in the virtual world of Soul Beach - an online paradise for the young, the beautiful and the dead - can Alice feel truly free. But there's trouble in paradise . . .

Clouds are gathering.

A storm is brewing.

The killer is about to strike.


The final gripping thriller in this paranormal romance trilogy.

Which of these UKYA books are you most looking forward to reading in August?

Why Barbara Kingsolver inspires me as a writer by Alexia Casale

I can say that without reservation, The Bone Dragon by Alexia Casale is my *favourite* book that I've read all year. I loved it wholly and completely and I absolutely fell under its spell.  I thought it was emotional and beautiful and I really do recommend that you go out and immediately and read it.

Having said that, I am incredibly pleased that Alexia Casale is here on the blog today guest posting while I'm away. Alexia is absolutely lovely and I couldn't be happier that she is here talking aboout one of her writerly inspirations (and one of my favourite authors!) Barbara Kingsolver. Please do leave Alexia and I lovely comments!  And if you'd like to know more about The Bone Dragon or about Alexia, please do visit the following websites: 

Alexia Casale ... Alexia on Facebook ... Alexia on Twitter

Why Barbara Kingsolver inspires me as a writer

by Alexia Casale

When Michelle invited me to guest-post on her wonderful blog, she gave me a plethora of topics to choose from, but I kept coming back to this one as I’ve wanted to do a post for ages about the author who inspires me most as a writer: Barbara Kingsolver.

If you haven’t read any of her books, do. My favourite is Animal Dreams, though I’ve yet to read them all.

‘WHY NOT?’ I hear you all roaring. And it’s a fair point, but…

It would be oh so easy to rush through them, marvelling… but I feel that if I read them all together I’d miss too much, not just as a reader but as a writer. Every so often, when I feel I’ve grown as a writer, I let myself read a new Kingsolver book, partly as a reward and partly to mark a new stage in the development of my writing.

Plus Kingsolver isn’t a fast writer so if I read all her books in one go there would be long stretches of time when I’d be bereft of new ones. So I save them up for when I need one.

The first Barbara Kingsolver I read was The Poisonwood Bible. And it is masterful, but it’s Animal Dreams that got into my soul as a writer. Here’s the sentence that sums up why:  
  
 Our chairs were close enough together so that I could have reached over and squeezed Loyd’s hand, but I didn’t do that.

This speaks so eloquently about what matters to me as a writer; subtext is a huge part of my writing because I think literature is most powerful when the realisation of what’s going on – in the plot, between characters, in the world of the story – comes from reader.

In this simple sentence, Kingsolver tells us – without telling us in so many words – not just what is happening, but what is not happening between the protagonist and her love interest. And in telling us what is not happening, she tells us about what people fail to do: what they could do and choose not to. There’s so much in this one sentence about how relationships both thrive and falter not just because of our actions, but our omissions. It’s a masterful piece of writing in terms of craft and its understanding of what relationships are. And it’s all between the lines of what, on the surface, is the most ordinary and un-flowery of sentences.

Barbara Kingsolver

In her 2013 Hay Book Festival session (televised by Sky Arts, if you missed it!), Kingsolver said that the first line of her books usually tells the whole story… though it’ll take until the end of the book to understand how and why that’s the case. This is true for a lot of writers. It’s something I did instinctively in my new book (entitled ‘MoB’ until it gets agent and editor approval), though not in The Bone Dragon.

The first line of Animal Dreams is this: 

His girls are curled together like animals whose habit is to sleep underground, in the smallest space possible.

I can’t say I feel this sums up the book as a whole, though when you read on, the rest of the powerful first scene does.

A slice of white moon from the window divides their bodies deeply into light and shadow, but not one from the other. … Hamimeda’s bed is still made. In the morning she’ll rumple it so he’ll believe she slept by herself, and then the girls will make it again. Their labours at deceiving him are as careful as surgery. …. Tonight he would see cheeks and eyelids stained bright yellow from marigold pollen. He’s spent a lifetime noticing small details from a distance.

If you want a master class in writing from different narrative perspectives, read Kingsolver. In Animal Dreams, the protagonist narrates the majority of the book in the first person. Here and there – as in this first scene – her father is the focal point of view. But though the father’s sections are in the third person, they’re so vivid, so immediate you feel the ‘I’ of the narrator voice... And the fact that this ‘I’ is never delivered tells you immediately what sort of a man he is: powerful, dominant, distant… And yet fully aware of this devastating character flaw, as the last line shows: it’s a beautiful, sparse statement of the ways in which people can sometimes see their own faults without having any sense that they are surmountable. Yet again, Kingsolver tells us all about what is not happening between people but could if only we were stronger, better versions of ourselves.

Later, we have this:

When he gets them home they sit hugging each other on the davenport, wrapped in the black-and-red crocheted afghan. They won’t stop shaking. They want to know if the baby coyotes died. If animals go to heaven. He has no answers. “We tried to put them in the paper bag we used for the prickle pears, but it fell all apart.” The tears steam out until the afghan is wet and he thinks there will be no more fluid in them to run the blood cells through their veins. He makes them drink orange juice. God, why does a mortal man have children? It is senseless to love anything this much.

Here is all the father’s emotion, held inside, and we see that the critical distance isn’t between him and his daughters but between him and his own emotions: love represented through orange juice, not touch.

Kingsolver is just as brilliant at presenting the truth of people and relationships through humour, making us laugh and then realising than perhaps we should be crying.

Emelina and I graduated from high school in the same year, 1972. Under my picture in the yearbook it said, “Will Go Far,” and under Emelina’s it said, “Lucky in Love.” You could accept this as either prophecy or a bad joke. I’d gone halfway around the world, and now lived three-quarters of a mile from the high school. Emelina had married Juan Teobaldo Domingos the same June we graduated. Now J.T. worked for the railroad and, as I understood it, was out of town most of the time. She said it didn’t bother her. Maybe that’s as lucky as love gets.

Even when Kingsolver just seems to be going for a laugh, she’s funny in a way that tells us important things about her characters: about people the world over.

“Glen, for heaven’s sakes, just eat that toast and put it out of its misery. The bus is going to be here ina minute and you don’t even have your shoes on.”

“No, but I know where they are,” Glen declared.

One of the things I aspire to as a writer is to create stories that feel like the truth: the bigger truth about what the world is, and what people are, and how it all works. I aspire to Kingsolver’s ability to create fiction that tells a deeper truth about reality than the ‘facts’ ever could, like she does here:

All told, probably more women have lost a child from this world than haven’t. Most don’t mention it, and they go on from day to day as if it hadn’t happened, and so people imagine that a woman in this situation never really knew or loved what she had.But ask her sometime: how old would your child be now? And she’ll know.

Alexia has had her heart set on being a writer since before she can remember so naturally she has degrees in Social & Political Sciences and Educational Psychology/Technology from Cambridge, and a PhD and teaching qualification from Essex. She has worked as a charity trustee, West End script-critic, executive editor of a human rights journal and on a Broadway musical… among other things. A dual British/American citizen with a large Italian family, she lives in the Sibillini mountains and the Chilterns-based domicile of her feline patron. She’s not sure which side of the family her dyslexia comes from, but is resigned to the fact that madness runs in both. She loves cats, collects glass animals and interesting knives, and has always wanted a dragon.

 

THE BONE DRAGON by Alexia Casale will be published by Faber in Spring 2013

 

www.alexiacasale.com

www.thebonedragon.com

Thank you, Alexia! Have you read Barbara Kingsolver? Who inspires you as a writer?

English Summer Rain by Eleanor Wood, author of Gemini Rising

Hello! I'm currently away this week, very busily preparing a psychological experiment at Bath  University. 

But luckily for both you and me, there are lovely people out there in the world like Eleanor Wood, author of Gemini Rising who have really stepped up and are guest posting for me this week.  Thank you so much, Eleanor.  I particularly love this guest post about the British setting of Gemini Rising. It is always wonderful to see yourself or your world reflected in the stories we read.   So please give a warm welcome to Eleanor and if you'd like to know more about her or Gemini Rising, please do visit the following links:

Buy Gemini Rising on Amazon ... The Perfect Mixtape - Eleanor's blog ... Eleanor on Twitter ... Eleanor on Facebook

English Summer Rain

by Eleanor Wood

‘Take it!’ she whispers to me – but it’s not a soft whisper; it’s a mean, spitty whisper. ‘Just put it in your pocket.  We’ll take one each.’

She really wants that Miss Selfridge hairband with the daisies on it.  We’re going to Reading Festival together next month and it would be a great accessory.  We presume so, anyway – we’ve never been to a festival before.  We are planning on dressing like Gwen Stefani in baggy trousers and bikini tops, maybe the odd bindi.  The daisy hairband is very Gwen Stefani.

I glance around the shop before I stuff it up the sleeve of my blazer.  I don’t look to see what she’s done with hers; I don’t look back until we’ve both walked out of the shop, as fast as we can without running.

We collapse onto a plastic bench seat in McDonalds, across the road, where we share a portion of chips and eat four cheeseburgers each.  We grin at each other with our mouths full and I know it’s all worth it – I’ll have to hide the hairband from my mum but when we wear our matching daisies at Reading Festival, we’ll have a secret that no-one else knows.

In the original blurb for my novel, I quoted a Morrissey lyric – ‘spending warm summer days indoors’ (as opposed to, say, ‘you’re the one for me, fatty’).  From the classic Smiths song Ask, it conjures up for me the ideal teenage imagery.  It is also followed by the excellent lines ‘writing frightening verse, to a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg’.

This was exactly the picture I wanted to paint in my novel, Gemini Rising – the specific and peculiar experience of growing up in English suburbia.  I get strangely excited whenever I read a book or watch a film where I recognise the settings.  If ever I read a book set in Brighton, where I now live, I practically explode with joy.

It’s not something that has ever happened to me very much in YA literature. With a few great exceptions (hi, Sarra Manning!), I could never find many novels in which I recognised myself – geographically, as well as spiritually.

I grew up just outside west London and went to a very small girls’ school, much like the one in my book.  My main teenage memories are of: hanging around in parks; hanging around ‘in town’; the halcyon days of taking the train to Camden Market or gigs at the Shepherds Bush Empire; shoplifting from Boots and Miss Selfridge (sorry) and eating epic quantities of junk food after school with my best friend before going home for dinner.

It was so boring that it was the perfect setting for something to happen.  Just ask David Lynch.  I’m also a secret goth and love anything spooky.  I came to the conclusion that teenage girls are spooky enough; small towns are spooky enough.  This is a recipe that does not need fancy ingredients.

Perhaps to some of you, a book set in a tiny girls’ sixth form in an unnamed small town – complete with trips on the top deck of the bus, getting collected by your parents from gigs at midnight and skiving off school to hang out with boys on dodgy estates – might seem exotic.  Maybe you live in the most rural of countryside.  Maybe you grew up right in the middle of a big city, instead of watching from the fringes.  If so, when I was 17, I’d have envied you.

Now I think you’ve just got to know where to look – there is always magic and darkness on the edge of town.

What's to come here at Fluttering Butterflies!

Hello! I'm sorry for the very few blog posts around here. I didn't think July was going to be this *tough* ... but I always knew that from today I would be away in beautiful Bath on a weeklong residential course for my uni studies. And because I am going to focusing a lot of time on that this week, I thought that I would arrange for a whole of lovely guest posters to take over Fluttering Butterflies while I am away... I really hope that you guys lovely the guest posts this following week, I think they are all amazing and I would love it if you could give them all plenty of love by writing lots of comments.

And what should you be expecting for this week of awesome? Let me tell you! 

First up, on Monday I have a guest post by Eleanor Wood, author of Gemini Rising about the very British setting of her book. 

Tuesday, Alexia Casale, author of The Bone Dragon, will be here talking about on her of writerly inspirations.

Wednesday, I will be bringing you my list of the UKYA in August that you should be looking out for and reading. 

Thursday, I will be kicking off the Cruel Summer by James Dawson blog tour!

Friday sees a special 'What would you do?' post by Helen Grant, author of Silent Saturday.

Saturday, Rebecca from Rebecca-Books is here with an interesting debate that all book lovers will have an opinion of.

And on Sunday, Sophie from So Many Books, So Little Time is sharing with us one of her Bookshelf Requirements. 

...I hope that whets your appetite for what is to come here on Fluttering Butterflies.  I really appreciate the time and effort that went into writing these guest posts. So a huge thank you to Eleanor, Alexia, Helen Grant, Rebecca and Sophie!

Waiting on Wednesday (14)

Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

I've fallen in love with this cover of The Elites by Natasha Ngan! Isn't it wonderful?  I've followed Natasha on Twitter for awhile now and I'm very much looking forward to this, her debut book.  Plus, I think Hot Key Books have an amazing selection of books that they publish!  The Elites is published in September, mark your calendars or add this one to your wishlists etc!

The Elites by Natasha Ngan (5th September, Hot Key Books)

'There is a rumour that the Elites don't bleed.'

Hundreds of years into the future, wars, riots, resource crises and rising sea-levels have destroyed the old civilisations. Only one city has survived: Neo-Babel, a city full of cultures - and racial tension. Fifteen-year-old Silver is an Elite, a citizen of Neo-Babel chosen to guard the city due to her superior DNA. She'd never dream of leaving - but then she fails to prevent the assassination of Neo Babel's president, setting off a chain of events more shocking and devastating than she could ever have imagined. Forced to flee the city with her best friend Butterfly (a boy with genetically-enhanced wings), Silver will have to fight to find her family, uncover the truth about Neo-Babel and come to terms with her complicated feelings for Butterfly.

Packed full of adventure, romance, exoticism and the power of friendship, THE ELITES is a highly compelling and beautifully written novel from a supremely talented debut author.

The Elites on Goodreads
Natasha Ngan
Natasha Ngan on Twitter

What are you waiting on today?

Birthday Giveaway (UK and INT)

Let me let you on a little secret* ... today is my birthday. (*not a secret at all, in fact!) And to celebrate the 31st anniversary of my birth, I've decided to host a little giveaway today.

I'm really sorry for my absence of late.  It's been a horrible mixture of exhaustion, too much pressure with my uni course, lethargy due to the heat and a death in the family.  I'm hoping that in a few week's time, I might feel up to blogging again. We shall see.

But enough of that. Here are the books up for grabs.  There will be a UK only giveaway in which one winner will get to choose 4-5 books from the two photos below. All are UKYA (or MG) in 2013...

Smuggler's Kiss by Marie-Louise Jensen (ARC)
Killing Rachel by Anne Cassidy
Follow Me Down by Tanya Byrne (ARC)
The Disappeared by CJ Harper
Kite Spirit by Sita Brahmachari
Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics by Ellie Phillips
The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks
The Hit by Melvin Burgess (ARC)
OMG! Is This Actually My Life by Rae Earl (ARC)
The Drowning by Rachel Ward
Burning Bright by Sophie McKenzie
The Night Itself by Zoe Marriott (ARC)
Black Sheep by Na'ima B. Robert
Waiting For Gonzo by Dave Cousins (ARC)
The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna
Hidden Among Us by Katy Moran
After Iris by Natasha Farrant
Silent Saturday by Helen Grant
Lost Worlds by Andrew Lane
The Taming of the Tights by Louise Rennison (manuscript)

More books to choose from....

The Last Minute by Eleanor Updale (signed by the author)
Heroic by Phil Earle
Spy for the Queen of Scots by Theresa Breslin
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
Wild Boy by Rob Lloyd Jones (ARC signed by the author)

And for you international readers, you can win this signed copy of The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater! 

To enter either of the giveaways (or both!) just leave a 'PICK ME' comment below plus some way of getting in contact with you (email address or Twitter ID!) Also let me know which giveaway you are entering.  I will contact the UK giveaway winner to

That's it.  Good luck! Winners will be chosen in 7 days.

(While I have you here, I would love for you to 'like' the Fluttering Butterflies Facebook Page? You don't have to, it will not impact your chances of winning the giveaways at all. Just if you'd like.)

Waiting on Wednesday (13)

Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

The Night School series by CJ Daugherty is one of my favourite recent series! I love many things about it from the boarding school setting, the unexpected twists and surprises in the storyline, the great characters. But maybe the biggest thing I love about this series is that the 2nd was only just published in January of this year. Hurrah for such a short wait between books! :)

August isn't too far away, mark your calendars!

Night School Fracture by CJ Daugherty (15th August, Atom)


Devastated by the loss of her friend and under constant threat from an unknown spy at Cimmeria Academy, Allie Sheridan is finding it hard to cope.

In Fracture, the third book in the Night School series, she’s not the only one losing it – everything is falling apart. And when Nathaniel begins to reveal his game plan, Isabelle starts to lose control.

As the school slides into a deadly morass of paranoia and suspicion, everyone is guilty until proved innocent. Anyone can be held without proof, and convicted without a trial. No one is safe.

This time Nathaniel doesn’t need to hurt them. This time they’re hurting themselves.

Night School: Fracture on Goodreads
CJ Daugherty
CJ Daugherty on Twitter

What are you waiting on today?

Summer Hairstyles by Ellie Phillips (Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics Blog Tour)

Today I am very happy to introduce both Ellie Phillips, the author of Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics (sequel to Dads, Geeks and Blue-Haired Freaks) to the blog today along with Sadie Nathanson, the lovely star of the series to talk about summer hairstyles.  I have to admit, I quite fancy that two-strand braid.  

But for now, I'll leave you in the capable hands of Ellie and Sadie, and if you'd like to know more about Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics or about Ellie (and Sadie!) please do visit the following websites:

Ellie Phillips ... Ellie on Twitter

Summer Hairstyles

by Ellie Phillips and Sadie Nathanson

In my new book ‘Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics’ the main character, Sadie Nathanson, is on a mission to win The Thames Gateway Junior Apprentice Hairdresser (or Barber) of the Year Competition.  So, as she’s the expert, I thought I’d get Sadie to talk us through what’s happening with Summer Hair 2013;

“Okay, just so you know; I am a total hair geek.  My cousin Billy is a geek fullstop; guitars, World of Warcraft – you name it he’s obsessed, so I reckon it’s something in the genes, right? 

Anyway, being a hair geek the first thing I think when I see someone is ‘okay – what’s with the hair?’ And that can be anybody; Barack Obama, The Queen, that woman opposite me on the bus, nobody is exempt from my scrutiny so watch out…. 

So, Summer Hair 2013: 

First impressions: it’s looking big and shaggy.  The word is ‘natural’ this summer. There’s ombre, shaggy bobs and my weird boss, Dariusz, says that twisting is very now.

If you’re a long-term hair geek like me then you’ll notice that ‘natural’ is a big contrast to that dead straight hair I was still doing last year – which personally I thought made some people look like drowned rats. 

My stand-out favourite trends are these:

1. Khloe Kardashian’s ombre – the lighter tones at the end of her hair are natural and sun-kissed looking

2. Ashley Roberts’s shaggy bob – it’s perfectly tousled – but not too perfectly – remember ‘natural’ is the word du jour.

3. If you’ve got long hair (my Cleopatra bob’s almost grown out) then you might be on the look out for a new twist.  The trend that came up last year, and which is still around this summer, is literally a ‘new twist’; – the two strand braid.  With the ‘two-strand’ you twist both sections three times before wrapping the hair over and securing at the bottom. 

And, as it’s summer and ‘natural’ is in I’d say that flowers are definitely a must. I’ve done a heap of clients this last month going to festivals who’ve left the salon looking like a right bunch of hippies. 

If you’re deciding on a whole new look then I can tell you some useful stuff about face shape, because, GOLDEN RULE; certain styles fit certain faces, dontcha know.

The client I worked on at Aunt Lilah’s salon last Saturday (yawn) had a triangular face!  Triangular!  THAT is a CRIME AGAINST HAIRDRESSERS.  You have to narrow the forehead and widen the chin – I did a side-swept fringe – total genius.

But what about other face-shapes;

Round faces need to be balanced out – so fringes help

Long faces look good with the opposite to long and straight hair – so curls and blunt fringes really break it up – even a visible side or messy bun can soften a long face

Heart shaped faces (similar to triangular) but sweeter – a jaw length style compliments the cute pointy chin thing, and a fringe that’s cut longer at the sides is also a winner but I can’t tell you for why – I’ll have to check that out with Dariusz when he’s not scowling at me and flinging hairpins around.

Square faces can come across as a bit masculine – so if you don’t want to look like Arnie Schwarzenegger, get some layers quick!

And finally – the oval face – my total dream; you can more-or-less do anything.  The advice is “don’t cover up” – so no heavy fringes or brushed forward styles.  I should say, that as this last bit of advice is from Aunt Lilah who still cuts ‘The Rachel’ on half of her clients, you may want to ignore it completely!   Happy Summer Hair guys!”

Thanks for that Sadie and Ellie! Ellie has created a special hair quiz - Are you a sister of the scissors or a manic panicker? Check it out and let us know how you score!

REVIEW: Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics by Ellie Phillips

There is so much to love about Sadie Nathanson and this series! I thought Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics by Ellie Phillips was a really fun and cute book that had me rooting for Sadie, smiling at her crazy family and becoming more interested in the complexities of hair. 

It's hard to say what I love the most about this book.  I love Sadie very much. I love how into hair she is and that hair is something she openly admits to be geeky and passionate about.  I've never been that fussed about hair - mine or anyone else's, but Sadie's enthusiasm for it makes me change my mind about it.  She's really committed to being the best with hair that she can be and I find that a really admirable trait.

The other thing about this series that makes me love it so much is Sadie's bizarre family.  I love how her and her cousin, Billy, are so close that they're more like siblings than cousins. I love the extended family with her Aunty Lilah and Uncle Ze.  I love that Abe has been taken into the fold and that though while they all bicker and get all up in each other's business, that when it comes down to it, they're all there for each other too. I love big supportive families like Sadie has and I wish there were more of them in YA literature! 

In Scissors, Sisters and Manic Panics, Sadie is dealing with lots of different things.  She's applying for a hairdressing competition that has her stressed out. Especially after a dye job in her aunt's salon goes wrong and Sadie is fired.  Without an apprenticeship at a hair salon, Sadie will never be able to enter the competition. I love the steps that Sadie takes in order to fix this problem and I love all the new characters that we meet, especially Dariusz and his 'brrrush'!

Together with the hairdressing competition, there is drama concerning Billy and his band, insecurities over her relationship with Tony and Sadie's half-sister appear out of the woodwork!  I feel like some of the drama and conflict could have gone a little deeper but I didn't mind so much because of what a great character Sadie is and because of how great her family dynamics are portrayed. I desperately want to attend Friday night dinners with Sadie and her family!

Interview with Sam Hepburn, author of Chasing the Dark

Hello! Today I bring you an interview with the very lovely author of Chasing the Dark, which was published by Chicken House in May. Sam Hepburn is a pen name for Sam Osman and she uses the different names to separate her children's series from her teen mysteries.  

Chasing the Dark looks absolutely fantastic! And a very cool thing that happened is that Sam's son and his friend created their very own book trailer for the book.  I wish I was as creative at 15 as these two boys!  Check out the book trailer and if you want to know more about Sam or Chasing the Dark, please do visit the following links:

 Sam Hepburn ... Sam Osman ... Sam on Twitter

Chasing the Dark Book Trailer

Do you use mood/inspiration boards or write to any particular music?

I wouldn't call it a mood boar exactly but I ferret away news clippings, scraps of information, snippets of overheard conversation and strange objects and think about them when I am devising plots and characters. I also draw a lot on the weird and wonderful people, places and things I saw during my twenty years as a documentary maker for the BBC. I don't write to music either but I do  stare out of the window a lot and watch the strange comings and goings in my street while I'm thinking things through. Sometimes the dramas going on outside are far crazier than anything I could invent.


What has been the best experience so far of being a writer?  

Opening a jiffy bag and seeing a copy of something I've written for the very first time is always pretty amazing. 

Which book or books are you most looking forward to reading in 2013? 

I've enjoyed reading Sophie Mckenzie's books for teens so I'm really looking forward to reading her new thriller for adults, Close my Eyes.


Which author would render you speechless if you were to meet unexpectedly? 

As far as dead ones go I think it would have to be Charlotte Bronte. I once made a two part drama documentary about her life and it is almost impossible to believe that anyone who led such a narrow, cheerless existence could have written such powerful books. As for living authors, I think meeting Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird would be pretty amazing.


Were there any particular scenes or characters that you really struggled to write?  

Yes, I'm a bit claustrophobic and there is a kidnap scene in Chasing the Dark in which the main character Joe and his friend Nina are locked in a freight container. I get a bit breathless just thinking about it!


If you could be best friends with any fictional character, who would you pick?  

Hmm . . . that's difficult, but  I think it would Katniss Everdeen or Jane Austen's Emma. I like my friends feisty! 


If readers love Chasing the Dark, do you have any recommendations of what they should pick up next?  

Tanya Byrne's Heart Shaped Bruise is a subtle, interesting YA thriller that I enjoyed very much.

Finally, what can we expect from you next?  

Another thriller - watch this space!


Thank you so much for that, Sam! The thing about being locked in a freight container makes me feel breathless too... 

Add Chasing the Dark to Goodreads ... Buy from Amazon ... Buy from The Hive Network

Waiting on Wednesday (12)

Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

I have yet to read Katie Dale's previous book, Someone Else's Life, but even so I'm still incredibly curious to read her new book, Little White Lies. I really like the sound of it.  Full of secrets and surprises. And with it being published next month by Simon and Schuster, at least there isn't that long to wait!

Little White Lies by Katie Dale (1st August, Simon and Schuster Children's Books)


Lucy can't help but be drawn to the mysterious Christian, but the more time they spend together the more she realises that Christian has a secret past that he's not keen to share, clamming up every time she tries to get him to talk to her. Lucy isn't someone who takes no for an answer, and as the two grow closer she's determined to find out the truth about Christian and the past he wants to keep hidden ...but even if she does, will Lucy like what she discovers? And with secrets of her own to hide, is Lucy playing a dangerous game...Full of family secrets, surprising twists and unexpected revelations, Katie Dale's second novel will have readers on the edge of their seats.

Little White Lies on Goodreads
Katie Dale 
Katie Dale on Twitter 

What are you waiting on today?

Discussion Starters by Sara Grant (Half Lives Blog Tour)

I am absolutely thrilled today to be part of the blog tour for Half Lives by Sara Grant. I really enjoyed Sara's debut book, Dark Parties, and I think Half Lives explores some really interesting themes. If you aren't already familiar with what the story of Half Lives is about, here is the product description:

Present day: Icie is a typical high school teenager - until disaster strikes and her parents send her to find shelter inside a mountain near Las Vegas.

The future: Beckett lives on The Mountain - a sacred place devoted to the Great I AM. He must soon become the leader of his people. But Beckett is forced to break one of the sacred laws, and when the Great I AM does not strike him down, Beckett finds himself starting to question his beliefs.

As Beckett investigates The Mountain's history, Icie's story is revealed - along with the terrifying truth of what lies at the heart of The Mountain.

Sara Grant's HALF LIVES is a dystopian chronicle of the journeys of two unlikely heroes in their race against time to save future generations. 

Please give a warm welcome to Sara Grant...

 

Discussion Starters

by Sara Grant

I’m like that annoying toddler who keeps asking, why? But why? Why? Why? Why? For me writing is equal parts imagination and exploration.

My new teen novel Half Lives is a story told in two voices from a pre- and post-apocalyptic time – challenging the nature of faith and the power of miscommunications but most of all the strength of the human spirit to adapt and survive.

Icie is a typical teenager, until disaster strikes. Her only hope of survival is escaping to a top-secret mountain bunker. Hundreds of years later, 18-year-old Beckett leads a cult that worships a sacred Mountain. But Beckett and his beliefs are under attack. Icie and Beckett must fight to survive. They are separated by time but connected by a dangerous secret that both must protect at any cost.

While pondering, researching and writing Half Lives, three themes kept popping up:

• Survival – Not only what it might take to survive but how far you would go to save yourself and others.

• Legacy – What are we leaving behind for future generations? How will they judge our way of life?

• Faith – Everyone develops a belief system. For some it’s based on an organized religion. For others it’s grounded in superstition or history or logic.

I don't write because I have all the answers, I write because I'm happy to endlessly ponder the questions. When I was a teen, I loved to stay up late and chat with friends about life’s big questions and mysteries. But sometimes I didn’t feel as if I had the vocabulary or the necessary education in politics, history, geography, philosophy, etc. to adequately discuss some topics. What I love about science fiction and fantasy stories is that they give readers the chance to discuss current issues in a way that’s not intimidating.

Writing has always been a way for me to explore my world. When I was a teen I wrote stories and poems to discover what I was thinking and feeling. And that hasn’t changed. I still write to ask why, why, WHY? The only difference now is I get to share these topics with readers!

I’ve created discussion sheets for Half Lives  and Dark Parties  on my web site, if you’re interested in a discussion.

But Half Lives isn’t an ‘issues’ book. First and foremost, I hope readers are swept away by Icie and Beckett’s stories.


About Sara Grant

Sara is an author of fiction for teens and younger readers and freelance editor of series fiction. She has worked on twelve different series and edited nearly 100 books. Dark Parties, her first young adult novel, won the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award for Europe. Her new novel for teens – titled Half Lives – is an apocalyptic thriller. She also writes – Magic Trix – a fun, magical series for younger readers.

Sara was born and raised in a small town in the Midwestern United States. She graduated from Indiana University with degrees in journalism and psychology, and later she earned a master’s degree in creative and life writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She lives in London.

www.sara-grant.com    @authorsaragrant

Interview with Natasha Farrant, author of The Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby: After Iris (Blog Tour)

Hello! Today I am very pleased to be part of the blog tour for The Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby: After Iris by Natasha Farrant. I really enjoyed Natasha's previous book, The Things We Did For Love and so I jumped at the chance to be included in the blog tour for After Iris.  

I flew through Blue's diaries really quickly and I absolutely sobbed at the beauty and sadness of her words and her video transcripts.  I thought it was a lovely, bittersweet story of a really broken and grieving family. I loved it, which is why I'm so happy to have interviewed Natasha for today's stop in the blog tour. Please give a warm welcome to Natasha Farrant and if you'd like to know more about The Diaries of Bluebell Gadbsy or Natasha, please do visit the following websites:

Natasha Farrant ... Natasha on Twitter ... Natasha on Facebook

You've dedicated After Iris to your brother and sisters, how would you say that your family compares to the Gadsby family?


Well, I grew as one of three girls and a boy in West London, so from a logistical point of view we are quite similar… Beyond that, I think the resemblances between the Gadsbys and my family are those that you find in many big modern families – stressed parents, everyone clamouring for their slice of attention, constant arguments but lots of underlying love.  The Gadsbys push all this to new limits, of course, but I do think they are representative of all families, more than my family in particular.

I really love that the story is told in both diary entries and video transcripts. Why did you choose this unusual format in order to tell this story?

I spent a lot of time before starting to write thinking about who my narrator was, and how she would tell her story.  Blue is completely isolated in her grief. She badly needs a confidante but she has no-one to talk to.  All she can do is watch other people, and it’s only natural that she should turn to her diary to pour her heart out.  The video-camera was inspired by a book I read a long time ago, In a Land of Plenty by Tim Pears, in which another lonely child recorded his family history by taking photographs.  The camera is a brilliant metaphor for isolation – it allows you to look closely at the world, without being a part of it.  I took it a step further, by having Blue make films rather than take photographs, making the process an integral part of the narrative.  The diary/film format aren’t just a literary device: they’re an expression of who Blue is, and I think that’s why they work so well.  I also had been thinking for a long time that I would love to write a screenplay, because I love the cinema, and this seemed like an interesting way to start!

I really loved all the mentions of familiar London sights. Where would you say your favourite spot in London is?

I have lots! I’m a genuine Londoner – half French but I was born here, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. One of my all time favourite places are the formal gardens in Holland Park. They are round the back of the opera house, and on summer evenings we used to take picnics and listen to the singing.  Once we hid and stayed long after the park had closed, which was magical.  We broke into the adventure playground and ran around in the dark (this was as fully grown adults…)  It has a dahlia garden which I have to visit every year at the end of summer, because dahlias remind me of my wonderful great-aunt Monique, so I go as a sort of tribute to her. There’s a giant chess board, a café, a tiny art gallery and the prettiest fountain which my children once dived into when they were little on a very hot day, leading the way for this joyous tidal wave of half-naked, splashing children, much to the consternation of the parks constabulary...  London’s parks are amazing.  They represent everything that is great about our wonderful city. 

The entire Gadsby family is dealing with sadness and grief in their different ways. Was there a particularly difficult scene that you found hard to get right or kept coming back to?

Iris’s death.  I wrote it again and again, and it was very difficult to get right.  It was complex from a structural point of view, because it happened three years ago, and I knew it had to deliver an emotional punch without slowing up the narrative – you know how sometimes in films flashbacks just end up confusing you, because you’re so engrossed in the present? So I had to convey this huge, huge thing that happened to this family in as few words as possible, but still making it gut-wrenchingly sad.  In the end, as always, less proved to be more.  Especially in sad scenes, it’s often what you don’t say that has the most profound effect. For example, Blue tells us she was reading the Hobbit when Iris dies.  Afterwards, rather than saying “I was sad”, or “I couldn’t believe it”, she says “I hate the stupid Hobbit.” It took a long time to get to that one little line…

Do you have a favourite fairy tale or bit of Arthurian legend?

I don’t have a particular favourite, but when I was little, my French grandmother had a beautiful clothbound illustrated edition of Charles Perrault’s fairy tales, which I used to read whenever I went to stay with her.  I think it’s one of those books that made me love all books.  It was kept in a drawer in the tiny room where we slept.  I used to take it out like it was a secret treasure, and I never shared it with anybody.  Also, my mother used to travel to Russia a lot and bring us back books of Russian fairy tales, all princesses and wolves and snow and bears…  I loved those.

What were you like at Bluebell's age and what things were you into? Was the filming and rats and drama pulled from your own experiences? :)

What was I like??? Insecure.  Emotional.  I once cried for a whole afternoon over a bad hair cut and apparently you could hear me half way down the street, and my sister once threw the cat at me in an argument… So I guess the drama is drawn from experience!  I loved reading and the cinema and horse-riding, and I liked playing tennis, mainly because it meant gossiping with friends…  And I spent far too much time in Boots trying on eyeliner and lip gloss.  But as to rats and filming – those are pure imagination!  Though come to think of it, I did try to teach my hamster tricks, before she seized her moment and escaped…

Finally, After Iris made me cry uncontrollably, is there a tear jerker book you've read recently that you'd recommend?

Well, I cry at almost anything…  On the children’s side, I recently read a book which HarperCollins will publish next Autumn, called The Princess and the Foal, based on the real life story of an Arabian princess who lost her mother in a helicopter crash when she was a little girl, and who found comfort in raising an orphaned foal her father gave her.  That made me cry a lot.  And for adults, the last book to make me cry a lot was The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, which is about Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage.  I was fine until the end, when she writes about Hemingway’s death, and then I also wept uncontrollably.  On an Easyjet flight. With no tissues…