Black Bird of the Gallows Excerpt and Giveaway

I’m seriously questioning the wisdom of coming here. Who is this boy? Who are these people? I may not want these answers. Whatever illusion I had been weaving about this being a normal family can’t be true. This is a family, yes, but one putting on an elaborate show to appear to be something they are not. “Everyday life can’t be so bad,” I say lightly, eager to change the subject before I start luring myself down a hole. “You have a beautiful home, a nice family. You’re popular at school. Kiera Shaw certainly likes you.”

He turns his gaze to me, slowly. “Kiera Shaw? You think I like her?”

“I don’t know what you like.” I don’t blink. I don’t look away. “I know only what I’ve seen.”

Reece leans close, gently entering my personal space. Close enough to put me on edge, but not close enough to intimidate. His voice is silk on gravel. His narrowed eyes glitter down at me. “And what, exactly, have you seen, Angie?”

Shivers race up my skin. I want to defuse this so badly, but I feel like this is a challenge I can’t lose. “I’ve seen and heard things that don’t make sense. Things I can’t understand.” I shift my gaze to my crow sitting on a branch above my head. It watches me with an intensity that would scare me if I wasn’t accustomed to it. “Tell me about the crows.”

He shakes his head. “Sorry. Either you know about them, or you don’t.”

My jaw tightens, even as I step toward him. I can feel his body heat. His clean, guy scent fills my senses with a unique magnetism that draws me close. Closer still. “I will find out.”

His gaze sweeps my face, lingering on my lips. “I hope not.” His breath warms my temple, sending a shiver under my skin. “There are worse things out there than a few watchful birds.”

“Like what?” I’m breathless, damn him. My words are barely audible.

His lashes fan low over his eyes. The narrow space between us crackles with tension. “Oh Angie, you don’t want to know.”

A simple but forgotten truth: Where harbingers of death appear, the morgues will soon be full.

Angie Dovage can tell there’s more to Reece Fernandez than just the tall, brooding athlete who has her classmates swooning, but she can’t imagine his presence signals a tragedy that will devastate her small town. When something supernatural tries to attack her, Angie is thrown into a battle between good and evil she never saw coming. Right in the center of it is Reece—and he’s not human.

What’s more, she knows something most don’t. That the secrets her town holds could kill them all. But that’s only half as dangerous as falling in love with a harbinger of death.

 

Black Bird of the Gallows will be released September 5, 2017 by Entangled Teen.

 

Meg Kassel is an author of fantasy and speculative books for
young adults. A graduate of Parson’s School of Design, she’s
always been creating stories, whether with visuals or words. She
worked as a graphic designer before realizing the thing she did
for pleasure (writing) was something she should do for real. Meg
is a New Jersey native who lives in a log house in the Maine
woods with her husband and daughter. A fan of ’80s cartoons,
Netflix series, and ancient mythology, Meg has always been
fascinated and inspired by the fantastic, the creepy, and the futuristic. When she’s not writing,
Meg is reading, hanging out with her family, hoarding peanut butter cups, or playing video
games. She is a two-time finalist and the 2016 winner of the RWA Golden Heart© contest in YA.

 

Entangled Teen is giving away two hardcover copies of this book. Enter to win here.

Add Black Bird of the Gallows to Goodreads.

Links to purchase Black Bird of the Gallows:

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Anderson’s Bookshop

Book Depository

 

WWW Wednesday 8/16/17

 

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

I am currently reading The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts by K.C. Tansley.

The last book I finished was We All Fall Down by Natalie D. Richards.

The book I’m reading next is The Girl Who Saved Ghosts by K.C. Tansley (physical arc).

7 ARCs approved today through Edelweiss+

I requested these all at different times.  Before this, I had one approved (which I reviewed) and one declined.  I just received an e-mail with 7 approvals.  Harper must like me today.  I had to share it with others who would appreciate it, too.

 

I already have my next few books planned, but it looks like I’ll be busy reading these soon.  Thank you Edelweiss and Harper!

Review of digital arc We All Fall Down by Natalie D. Richards

Summary from Goodreads:

Theo’s always been impulsive. But telling Paige how he feels? He’s obsessed over that decision. And it’s time. Tonight. At the party on the riverbank, under the old walking bridge, site of so many tales of love and death.

Paige has had a crush on Theo since they first met, but she knows her feelings are one-sided. She’s trying to move on, to flirt. A party at the river is just what she needs. Except a fight breaks out, and when Paige tries to intervene–Theo’s fist lands in her face.

All Theo and Paige want to do is forget that fateful night. But strange events keep drawing them back to the bridge. Someone, something is determined to make them remember…and pay for what they each did.

My thoughts:

We All Fall down was pretty hard to put down at times.  It was a strange story, but I just kept wanting to read.  The story is told by two people, Paige and Theo.  Both of them are pretty flawed and the book deals with a lot of mental health issues.  Paige had been in love with her best friend, Theo, for awhile, but he never seemed interested.  One night, they are heading to a party and Theo decides to tell Paige he loves her.  But Paige is at the party to see another boy.  Theo gets drunk, starts to fight with the boy, and hits Paige instead.  Paige loses teeth and has a small fracture in her jaw.

Time goes by and neither of them speak.  Paige goes to a summer program for science and Theo works with his uncle.  They are both right by the haunted bridge from that night.  Theo has to work on it and starts hearing voices.  That night keeps replaying over and over.  Paige starts receiving items she lost that night.  They run into each other and everything gets intense.

Paige is struggling with paranoia, anxiety, and sleepwalking.  She’s struggling to keep it together.  Theo meets a young kid, Gabriel, who starts studying to find out the history of the bridge and its ghosts.

Paige and Theo both still love each other, but they have to decide if their relationship can be healed and if it’s worth fighting for.

“We brought out the worst in each other before.  Enabled all the wrong behaviors.”

They need to relive that night and see if they can move past it.  Both need help that the meds they are on aren’t fixing.

“When are we ever ready to let go?  The past feels safe.  Sometimes you have to push past safe to get to healthy.”

I really enjoyed this book.  There were parts that annoyed me a bit, but overall, it was really good.  I gave this 4 stars.

We All Fall Down will be released October 3rd 2017 by Sourcebooks Fire.  I received a digital copy for review from Edelweiss+.

Received a package in the mail this weekend.

I haven’t read this book and I don’t have a copy yet, but it sounds interesting.  I went ahead and signed up for the street team and I’m hoping it’s as good as it sounds.

I received mail from MacMillan this weekend with this fun stuff as part of the street team.

Hoping to get through the chapter sampler soon.

Berserker by Emmy Laybourne is being released October 10th 2017 by Feiwel & Friends.

Summary from Goodreads:

Are Hanne’s powers a gift from the old Norse gods, or a curse?

Her brother Stieg swears their powers are a gift from the old gods, but Hanne Hemstad knows she is truly cursed. It’s not Stieg’s fault that their father is dead, their mother has left, and their brother Knut has been accused of a crime he didn’t commit.

No, the fault lies with Hanne and her inability to control her murderous “gift”–she is a Berserker. When someone she loves is threatened, she flies into a killing state. The siblings must leave Norway for the American frontier or risk being brought to justice.

Aided by a young cowboy who agrees to be their guide, Hanne and her siblings use their powers to survive the perilous trail, where blizzards, wild animals, and vicious bounty hunters await.

Will they be able to reach their uncle, the one man Hanne believes may be able to teach her how to control her drive to kill? With Berserker, Emmy Laybourne, the author of Monument 14, presents her vision of an American west studded with Viking glory.

Goodreads Monday

Goodreads Monday is hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners to share a book off your TBR list.

This week I’m choosing All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely.   It felt like the right book to choose this week.  I have this book here, so I’m hoping to read it within the next month or two.

Summary from Goodreads:

Rashad is absent again today.

That’s the sidewalk graffiti that started it all…

Well, no, actually, a lady tripping over Rashad at the store, making him drop a bag of chips, was what started it all. Because it didn’t matter what Rashad said next—that it was an accident, that he wasn’t stealing—the cop just kept pounding him. Over and over, pummeling him into the pavement. So then Rashad, an ROTC kid with mad art skills, was absent again…and again…stuck in a hospital room. Why? Because it looked like he was stealing. And he was a black kid in baggy clothes. So he must have been stealing.

And that’s how it started.

And that’s what Quinn, a white kid, saw. He saw his best friend’s older brother beating the daylights out of a classmate. At first Quinn doesn’t tell a soul…He’s not even sure he understands it. And does it matter? The whole thing was caught on camera, anyway. But when the school—and nation—start to divide on what happens, blame spreads like wildfire fed by ugly words like “racism” and “police brutality.” Quinn realizes he’s got to understand it, because, bystander or not, he’s a part of history. He just has to figure out what side of history that will be.

Rashad and Quinn—one black, one white, both American—face the unspeakable truth that racism and prejudice didn’t die after the civil rights movement. There’s a future at stake, a future where no one else will have to be absent because of police brutality. They just have to risk everything to change the world.

Cuz that’s how it can end.

This book was published  September 29th 2015 by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books.

 

Make Me Read It #MakeMeRead Wrap Up

I participated in this readathon hosted by Tea and Titles and The Innocent Smiley.  My goal was to read the top three books voted on in my poll and I’m happy to say that I finished all three (and another ARC I needed to squeeze in for review).

The book with the most votes was Geekerella by Ashley Poston. I’m so happy this book won because it instantly became a new favorite.  I loved this book.  It was a fun read that I flew through.  I gave this book 5 stars.

Anything can happen once upon a con…

When geek girl Elle Wittimer sees a cosplay contest sponsored by the producers of Starfield, she has to enter. First prize is an invitation to the ExcelsiCon Cosplay Ball and a meet-and-greet with the actor slated to play Federation Prince Carmindor in the reboot. Elle’s been scraping together tips from her gig at the Magic Pumpkin food truck behind her stepmother’s back, and winning this contest could be her ticket out once and for all—not to mention a fangirl’s dream come true.

Teen actor Darien Freeman is less than thrilled about this year’s ExcelsiCon. He used to live for conventions, but now they’re nothing but jaw-aching photo sessions and awkward meet-and-greets. Playing Federation Prince Carmindor is all he’s ever wanted, but the diehard Starfield fandom has already dismissed him as just another heartthrob. As ExcelsiCon draws near, closet nerd Darien feels more and more like a fake—until he meets a girl who shows him otherwise.

The second book I read was History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera.  I reviewed this book here.  Another 5 star rated book and another new favorite.  This book made me cry a lot.  It’s a super emotional read.

When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.

To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart.

If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.

The final book I read for the readathon was We Were Liars by E. Lockhart.  This was a good book, but not my favorite.  I gave it 3 1/2 stars (rounded it up for goodreads).  I liked the story and it was interesting, but the writing style wasn’t my favorite.  I did enjoy trying to figure out what happened though.

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.

And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

I’m pretty happy with my first readathon.  It definitely pushed me to read more than I normally do in a week.  Thank you to all of you who voted to choose these books for me.