Waiting on Wednesday: When We Wake by Karen Healey

    This is Breaking the Spine's Waiting for Wednesday, where bloggers post about a book they just can't wait to get their hands on!       

 

  When We Wake by Karen Healey

February 21st 2013

My name is Tegan Oglietti, and on the last day of my first lifetime, I was so, so happy.

Sixteen-year-old Tegan is just like every other girl living in 2027--she's happiest when playing the guitar, she's falling in love for the first time, and she's joining her friends to protest the wrongs of the world: environmental collapse, social discrimination, and political injustice.
But on what should have been the best day of Tegan's life, she dies--and wakes up a hundred years in the future, locked in a government facility with no idea what happened.

Tegan is the first government guinea pig to be cryonically frozen and successfully revived, which makes her an instant celebrity--even though all she wants to do is try to rebuild some semblance of a normal life. But the future isn't all she hoped it would be, and when appalling secrets come to light, Tegan must make a choice: Does she keep her head down and survive, or fight for a better future?

Award-winning author Karen Healey has created a haunting, cautionary tale of an inspiring protagonist living in a not-so-distant future that could easily be our own.

Kinda sounds like Pearson's Fox series crossed with Revis' Universe series.  I think it sounds like a good combination!

Waiting on Wednesday: The Goddess Inheritance by Aimee Carter

    This is Breaking the Spine's Waiting for Wednesday, where bloggers post about a book they just can't wait to get their hands on!       

 

  The Goddess Inheritance by Aimee Carter

February 26th 2013

Love or life.
Henry or their child.
The end of her family or the end of the world.
Kate must choose.

During nine months of captivity, Kate Winters has survived a jealous goddess, a vengeful Titan and a pregnancy she never asked for. Now the Queen of the Gods wants her unborn child, and Kate can't stop her--until Cronus offers a deal.

In exchange for her loyalty and devotion, the King of the Titans will spare humanity and let Kate keep her child. Yet even if Kate agrees, he'll destroy Henry, her mother and the rest of the council. And if she refuses, Cronus will tear the world apart until every last god and mortal is dead.

With the fate of everyone she loves resting on her shoulders, Kate must do the impossible: find a way to defeat the most powerful being in existence, even if it costs her everything.

Even if it costs her eternity.

I can't wait for the conclusion of this great series!

Waiting on Wednesday: The Different Girl by Gordon Dahlquist

    This is Breaking the Spine's Waiting for Wednesday, where bloggers post about a book they just can't wait to get their hands on!       

 

  The Different Girl by Gordon Dahlquist

February 21st 2013

Four nearly identical girls on a desert island. An unexpected new arrival. A gently warped near future where nothing is quite as it seems.

Veronika. Caroline. Isobel. Eleanor. One blond, one brunette, one redhead, one with hair black as tar. Four otherwise identical girls who spend their days in sync, tasked to learn. But when May, a very different kind of girl—the lone survivor of a recent shipwreck—suddenly and mysteriously arrives on the island, an unsettling mirror is about to be held up to the life the girls have never before questioned.

Sly and unsettling, Gordon Dahlquist’s timeless and evocative storytelling blurs the lines between contemporary and sci-fi with a story that is sure to linger in readers’ minds long after the final page has been turned.

An interesting premise and a great girls' book, reminds me of Beauty Queens!

The Hallowed Ones by Laura Bickle

This was one of the big surprises for me out of the Cybils.  I'm not big into Amish stories and I hate horror, so the combination sounded really distasteful.  And, I have to say, on some level it was.  My horror hate did come through a bit.  However, it really stuck with me as a good read, and I was still having nightmares a week later through all the other books I was reading so my subconscious really latched onto it as a chilling thing!

The concept of this book is great: what happens to Amish society during the apocalypse?  And what happens to a smart Amish girl who is questioning her faith and her elders?  Katie is a great narrator and a very well-built character, showing us her humanity and her faith at the same time.  Katie is very conflicted between preserving her way of life by not going against the elders and preserving her way of life by learning what's out there and how to keep it away from their community.  This conflict is great, and serves as a driving plot that really kicks up the drama, especially for such a short read.  The pacing is good, and although the romance seems very fast and a little forced, I went with it because Alex is such a well-rounded character.  The mechanics of the apocalypse are really well done (and I really want to say more about how awesome they are, but I can't without spoiling you!).  I was so enchanted and scared out of my pants that I read this book all in one sitting and then couldn't sleep.  I think any horror fan will find it as wonderful as I did.

Guest Post: Liesel Hill

Look guys, it's my first guest post, and it's by the wonderful Liesel Hill!

Bookish Inspiration

Hello Everyone! A big thank you to Aurora for hosting me here today. She’s asked me to talk about a few books that inspired me during the writing of my debut novel, Persistence of Vision.

Persistence of Vision is a dystopian fantasy with elements of sci-fi. So, there were some books that just inspired my writing in general, and others that specifically inspired me while writing my dystopia.

1.      Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I talk about this one a lot because it’s influenced me so much as a writer. I learned so much about the craft from this long-running series. Most books I’ve read combined cannot equal it.

2.      The Road by Cormac McCarthy. To me, this is the ultimate dystopia. It’s dark and bleak and brutal, but beautifully written and tragically ended. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that McCarthy won a Pulitzer for it. It was just that awesome and, in my humble opinion, you haven’t read dystopian until you’ve read The Road.

3.      Foundations and Earth by Isaac Asimov. Okay, I tend to be inspired by all of Asimov’s work, but I read this one just prior to writing Persistence of Vision and was totally enthralled by it. Unfortunately, it ends with a promise of a sequel that Asimov never got around to writing, so I don’t often recommend it because it’s just so disappointing not to have a sequel. (Don’t worry. I don’t plan on doing that to my readers.)

Of course there are hundreds of books and authors that have inspired me over the years, but these three have had particular relevance in recent years. So how about everyone else? What books inspire all of you?

 

Thanks to Liesel for her great post!  And stay tuned, I'll be reviewing Persistence of Vision next week, along with some other books.  I'm going to get back into the swing of things after the Cybils, I promise!