Posts Tagged "Teen Urban Fantasy"

Hi yaReaders,

I just wanted to let you know that our chosen Book of the Month here at yaReads in September is Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater.

For those that haven’t heard of this one yet, here’s a synopsis:

For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf–her wolf–is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again.

Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human–or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever.

Stay tuned for a review, guest review and an interview with the lovely Maggie. All coming your way this month!

Nick and his brother, Alan, have spent their lives on the run from magic. Their father was murdered, and their mother was driven mad by magicians and the demons who give them power. The magicians are hunting the Ryves family for a charm that Nick’s mother stole — a charm that keeps her alive — and they want it badly enough to kill again.

Danger draws even closer when a brother and sister come to the Ryves family for help. The boy wears a demon’s mark, a sign of death that almost nothing can erase…and when Alan also gets marked by a demon, Nick is des-perate to save him. The only way to do that is to kill one of the magicians they have been hiding from for so long.

Ensnared in a deadly game of cat and mouse, Nick starts to suspect that his brother is telling him lie after lie about their past. As the magicians’ Circle closes in on their family, Nick uncovers the secret that could destroy them all.

This is The Demon’s Lexicon. Turn the page.

As if being on the run from demons isn’t bad enough. When Mae and Jaime walk into Nick and Alan’s life, Nick reckons that things couldn’t get any suckier. Jamie has been marked, and his sister (Mae) is desperate for Nick and Alan’s help removing it. But then Alan gets marked and Nick’s priority is solely and absolutely focussed on getting that devilish thing the hell off his brother. And so starts their journey – all FOUR of them.

Yep, that’s right – Mae and Jamie are along for the ride. Alan insists he’ll help them – probably because he’s jonesing for Mae, Nick reckons, but whatever. Any reason is a bad reason. Alan should be focussing on getting his own mark removed, not removing someone else’s.

Then the unthinkable happens. Nick – although he refuses to acknowledge it initially – totally starts falling for Mae. A kid like Nick could probably use the loving of a good girl like Mae. Might break his rock hard exterior somewhat. Teach him a thing or two on the treatment of human beings. Problem is, though, that Nick can’t possibly like the same girl as Alan. Brothers just don’t do that to each other, right? And what about Mae? Nick is pretty sure she likes Alan, but then, he kind of thinks she likes him to. Typical. Damn girls.

And freaking hell, girls only complicate things. Girls shouldn’t be his priority right now. Alan should be. Alan IS. Really. He’s got to get that freaking mark off of Alan if it’s the last thing he ever does. His life is meaningless without Alan. And while Alan is marked, his days are pretty much numbered.

Just when you think its all over, that they’re all going to die, the story takes an unimaginable turn…

This one is a little slow on the uptake kids, but I guarantee that once the action starts you’re not going to want to put it down. If you’re not into the dark and agro characters normally, you might have a few issues processing your feelings towards Nick at the beginning, but I assure you, you’ll fall in love with him soon enough. Reading The Demon’s Lexicon taught me that I need to take my time with the narrative a little more. I’m always in such a hurry to get to the action, the hot spots of the novel. This is one of those foundation laying kind of stories. Every word is important. When you turn the last page, you’ll realise just how important.

Like a good fantasy novel? Love The Demon’s Lexicon.

Rating: :

The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan is our Book of the Month here at yaReads. Sarah added to her already huge stack of awesomeness this week and agreed to an interview with us for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.

So, since we’re running a contest that offers both the UK and the US covers as prizes, I have to ask: which one is your fave cover and why?

My favourite cover out of all my covers? Definitely my Japanese cover! Check it out: http://www.sarahreesbrennan.com/japancoversmall.jpg Is it not the greatest cover in the world? I’m having it made into posters to pass out when I am on tour with Scott Westerfeld in October. (Yes, you heard that right. Imagine that phone call as ‘You free to go on tour with Scott Westerfeld?’ *scream* *crash* *gurgling sound of someone trying to both faint and have hysterics* ‘… Yes, that sounds acceptable to me.’)

I like both my UK and US covers: I love how noir and dangerous the UK cover looks, and how the boy on the US cover is good-looking with just a hint of something dark in the eyes – and that underneath the US cover there’s a Secret Cover.

The Demon’s Lexicon world is kind of a mash of a whole bunch of urban fantasy genres. You’ve got everything magical in there. Was that a conscious decision or did it just kind of happen naturally?

I feel magic is like chocolate – adding it makes everything better. I’m never really able to believe that just one fantastical thing is true (witches are real but nothing else is, vampires are real but nothing else is) and I wanted to have a secret world that was believable, and magic that was used in a dozen different ways. Including using it for profit!

Nick is a very fierce character. Please explain.

Well, Nick has a lot to be upset about… Heh. I kept seeing characters who were watered-down versions of the mad, bad and dangerous to know type like Rochester and Heathcliff, and I really wanted to write a character who was mad, bad and dangerous to know – but from the inside, so nobody was distracted by the smouldering good looks (well… not very distracted) and so I could see how that character really ticked, make it clear that this kind of behaviour didn’t come from a good place and also (with some luck!) write a character who was still compelling despite all that.

I’m always interested in how authors choose names for their beloved characters. So, how did you choose yours?

Honestly I am always freaked out by characters with bizarre names in books. So many people with strange names like Faraday Moonfeather, so few explanations like ‘My parents were vampire elders/hippies/thought being beaten up on the playground would build moral fibre.’ So I knew I wanted really normal names for my characters, in order to fight the trend. So, Nick and Alan, normal names that I like. Plus it amuses me that Old Nick is one of the names for the devil, and it seemed a good fit for my slightly villainous hero.

Mae and Jamie, the other two main characters, were chosen to be not so strange and yet say something about their characters: Mae calls herself Mae after Mae West, truly one of the most awesome old movie stars ever (a couple of Mae West quotes: ‘Marriage is a fine institution… but I’m not ready for an institution yet’ and ‘Used to be Snow White, but I drifted’) and Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, which says a lot about Mae, and Jamie goes with a cute, non-threatening nickname rather than ‘James.’

Of course then I found out that ‘Jamie’ can also be a girl’s name in America. I’m so sorry, Jamie!

Did your plot, or your characters for The Demon’s Lexicon come first?

I knew the end of the book first, so you could say that plot came first, but the plot is really bound up with the characters: things only pan out the way they do because the people in the book are the people they are – a compulsive liar, a power addict, someone with an anger management problem and someone with a huge secret – so it’s very hard for me to disentangle the two.

How long did it take – from start to finish – to write The Demon’s Lexicon?

From having the idea to being totally finished, with revising it myself, revising it with my agent, revising it with my editor and copy edits done? Two years. (But I was writing other stuff by the time I was in copy edits… like the sequel!)

You were a Librarian before you were a writer. Do you miss it?

I was a library assistant, not even as fancy as a librarian. I will tell you one thing I miss about it – story hour at the library every Wednesday. I love reading aloud and running around, and we’d read Where the Wild Things Are and then scream ‘LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN!’ and jog around the children’s space as we all screamed and threw up our hands.

… My bosses never need to know this about me.

You lived in New York for a short period. What did you love most about that? Why did you decide to move back to Ireland?

Well, I moved back to Ireland because I only had a year’s visa as an intern, and the Law asks Questions of a young lady who stays on when her visa is expired…

But I did live in New York, yes, and I loved it. Part of it was just how different life is over there. ‘And what do you call this?’ ‘Mac and cheese…’ ‘Ah, MAC and CHEESE. Mmm, exotic.’ ‘And this delicacy?’ ‘Meatloaf.’ ‘Today I sampled the dish known as the Meat Loaf, Mother. I have as yet suffered no ill effects!’

And partly it was that New York is one of those sprawling, wonderful cities full of discoveries to be made. like a street with quotes written on every paving stone, and biker gangs who end up adopting you (long stories) and friends who don’t abandon you even though you shame them in your paroxysms over bubble tea.

As a first time novelist, is being a writer lived up to everything you thought it would?

I don’t think I ever had a clear idea of what it would be like: I spent years and years having it be a dizzy dream – I wasn’t able to think past publishers saying yes before they did, and when they did I didn’t spend any time thinking: I spent my time either ecstatically dreaming of huge success, or coldly fearing terrible failure.

Even now, there have only been a few moments where I could quietly process what’s happened: when I’m sitting down writing a book that I know someone besides my Great-Aunt Jemima will read, or reading a lovely email from someone who enjoyed the book, or curled up with tea and copy-edits. And then I think ‘Wow, I am so lucky’ and try to think about something else fast lest the luck be broken.

What is your fave fantasy novel?

I absolutely cannot pick one. I love far too many. But possibly my favourite fantasy novelist in the world is Diana Wynne Jones, who makes fantasy both funny and believable all the time, and ties it into issues like fantasy, love, family and betrayal in a way that hits all my fantasy-loving buttons at once with a massive hammer.

Do you get into contemporary/realist fiction?

I get into every kind of fiction there is! I love historical, crime, classics, romance, and everything in between. An extremely brilliant contemporary novel I’ve read recently is Jaclyn Mitchard’s The Deep End of the Ocean, about a young boy stolen from his family, and how his loss affects both his mother and his rebellious older brother. (It’s obvious at this point that families in fiction are one of my favourite things!)

You did an MA in Creative Writing. Is this something that you would recommend to all aspiring writers?

It would depend on the course, and also what they wanted to write. My tutor Liz Jensen (The Ninth Life of Louis Drax) was awesome and taught me a lot, but there were also a few people who thought fantasy was a waste of time. On the whole, I’m really glad I did the course, but I think it’s something everyone has to think over very carefully and then decide for themselves.

Which do you prefer…

Coffee or tea?

Tea. You might think this means I don’t have a problem, but tea actually has more caffeine in it than coffee, and I am on a good thirteen cups a day. Tea is my heroin. baby.

Summer or winter?

Summer! I love the sunshine. Which is sad for me, as the Irish summer lasts approximately three days.

Carrot or icecream?

How can you even ask me that? What do you take me for? Ice-cream! I just had burnt sugar and butter ice-cream while I was in Massachusetts, and honestly I still dream about it.

London or New York?

Oh. That one is really, really tough. I will say New York, because America has being exotic going on for it, and there is always something fun and strange happening in New York (though there’s mostly something fun and strange happening in London.) Still, given the Victorian tea parlour that’s secretly a bar, the library that’s secretly a bar, the underground spyhole that’s secretly a bar, the beauty shop that’s secretly a bar (What… I’m IRISH) I’ll have to go with New York. But I love both!

As promised, we have the title of the third Chaos Walking book for you right here!

As announced on author Patrick Ness’s blog, the title of the third and forthcoming novel in the series is …

Monsters of Men

To read more about the title, click here

Melissa Marr has announced that the fourth book in her popular Wicked Lovely series is now officially titled Radiant Shadows. We think it suits the other titles released so far. What do you think?