Book Rec — Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Read this!!!

Nuff said.

Just kidding. But seriously, this book is astoundingly good. It’s got everything you could want in a horror tale: scariness, humor, action, love, you name it. Oh, and in case you’re too much of a bum to click on the link to the description on Amazon (…kidding…). Here’s the description:

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.
But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life.

Cool right? Although, even the description doesn’t do this one enough justice.  Sounds a bit like Supernatural, yes? Well, it definitely has the same kind of sassy feel, but bled through with Tim Burtonesque imagery that is as beautiful as it is startling (and awesomely gruesome in parts). I dare you to go here and read the first chapter and then NOT want to read the rest. Go on, give it a shot, but be warned, the book doesn't come out until the end of this month!

Really, my only complaint is that I wanted Anna Dressed in Blood to be about a zillion pages longer. And yet it was the perfect length with a perfect story arc and a homerun ending. Did I mention it was perfect?

So yeah, lucky me (and definitely lucky you, dear readers), the sequel to Anna is already in the edit stage. That’s great news. Trust me, Kendare Blake’s is a writer whose stories you’ll want to get lost in (even if those stories might eat you alive). Or maybe because of.

Happy Reading

The Scorpio Races, a Horsewoman’s Perspective

First of all, this is not a review of The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. It’s more of a love letter. Because I LOVED this book. The premise of this YA Fantasy is pretty simple: set in the contemporary world circa 1920s or thereabouts, there is an island called Thisby whose waters (and at certain times land) is inhabited by magical flesh-eating seahorses. And once a year some of the more courageous of Thisby’s inhabitants, capture, train, and ride those horses in the Scorpio Races, a huge tourist-attracting event. The story, told in two alternating first person points-of-view, focuses on two of those riders who both have desperate and heartbreaking reasons to win the race.

Now, as a horse woman with years and years of experience both in the saddle and on the ground, I was a little concerned about the idea of flesh-eating monster horses — as in why would I want to read about that? I mean real life horses can sometimes be scary enough without razor-sharp teeth and a craving for meat and blood. Horses are big and often unpredictable. They have minds and personalities of their own. It hurts when they bite, kick, run you over. They can even kill you.

But then I started to hear good things about the story and decided to give it a try. I’m so very glad I did. Not only did the story blow me away with its beautiful setting, fierce/wonderful/fully-real characters, and a tension that builds like a slow scalding fire, but it also moved me on a deeply personal level, the level where my love of horses resides. When I finished it, I felt as if Maggie Stiefvater had reached inside me, captured my love of my horses, and wove into her story like magic. It was as if she’d written it just for me. It’s the story version of my love for this guy and his love for me:

First as a baby…

And now today…

You don’t have to be a horse lover to love this story, but being one makes the experience all the richer. Horses are more than pets. They’re trusted friends and partners. When you climb on a horse, you must trust it to carry you and to take care for you. You ask it to submit and to give, even as you submit and give back. There’s no feeling quite like it in the world — and The Scorpio Races embodies it.

P.S. Be sure to come back in the fall. I plan on holding a contest to give away the book (unfortunately, the ARC I read isn't mine, and I wouldn't be able to part with it even if it was, I love it that much)

And We Have a Deal — A Book Deal!!!

That’s right folks. After a long time of wishing, hoping, dreaming, striving, I’m so happy to report that this announcement appeared in Publishers Marketplace today:

Yes, not one book but 3 books! To say my head is spinning with how fast everything has happened and how excited and honored and humbled I am would be the understatement of the year. There’s a whole lot more I want to say and that probably should be said, but for now, I leave you with this:

 Yah baby!

Furry Friday — Just for Smiles

That’s right folks. I don’t have anything special or profound to write this week (I know, I know, like I ever do, right?). But nevertheless, it’s been a good, wonderful, happy week, the kind where you just want to smile and look eager, like my furry friends below (and no, they’re not all mine, at least not technically):

Have a great weekend. Happy reading and writing and everything else you might get up to!

HUGE Recommendation For Divergent by Veronica Roth

I think this summarizes my feelings about this book best: Veronica Roth has found a permanent fan in me. I plan on reading everything this girl writes that I can get my hands on. I loved her debut novel Divergent, which I just finished reading this morning. I won’t give a review or even a summary here because it’s not really my thing and because there are far better reviews/summaries available elsewhere.

Divergent is a YA Dystopian in the same vein of Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games, a series I very much enjoyed as well. But I have to say, I like this one better. It’s not perfect, and I have lots of questions I hope will be answered in the next book, but whereas The Hunger Games is a blatantly political novel (which is pretty par for the course with Collins) Veronica’s novel is more of a morality tale. And Veronica’s message seems far more honest to me and far truer.

By the end of Divergent I didn’t feel as though I’d been manipulated into seeing the world from someone else’s point of view. It didn’t make me feel ashamed of who I am. Just the opposite. Now it may be that I feel so strongly about this novel because the morality of it is my morality, the things I believe in, but I can’t tell you for certain. In the end, it doesn’t matter.

All I know is that Divergent is a good story with a strong, fascinating female protagonist. And it’s the type of story that needs to be told more often, one about love and self-sacrifice and what it truly means to be brave.

And I also know that its author, Veronica Roth, is truly brave.

I need to say a huge thank you to my agent, Suzie Townsend, for recommending Divergent to me. Otherwise, I might have overlooked this fantastic story. And man of man, I can’t wait for the next one!

Some Recommendations — Clarity, Dr. Who, and HP4 Writers

Okay folks, got some recommendations to throw your way. These are things that have brought me some laughs, chills, thrills, and deep thoughts this last week (Douglas Adam pun definitely intended), and I thought you might want to check them out, too.

Clarity by Kim Harrington was a fun, fast Young Adult novel of my favorite variety, the kind with plot. Don’t get me wrong, I really love YA, but a lot of it is pretty story-light. I like YA books with more of a Middle Grade sense of story — you know, where stuff happens — and this is one of them. Clarity is like Veronica Mars meets the Medium, and it’s a perfect summer/beach read.

I’m still digging me some Dr. Who. It’s so fun, so wacky, so British (totally in a good way). Unfortunately, however, even the cheesy, I’m-so-obviously-fake alien, zombie, and monster costumes are too scary for my 3 1/2-year-old. I’ve been forced to watch the episodes on the computer while cooking dinner or running on the treadmill, but that’s okay. They’re still fun. Speaking of satirical British fun, I think might have to consider reading some more Jasper Fforde in the near future…

And last but not least, I’m very happy to say how much I enjoy Susan Sipal’s blog Harry Potter for Writers. It’s fantastic. It’s brainy. It’s totally Harry Potter geeky and also immensely insightful into J.K. Rowling’s writing craftsmanship. If you’re a writer and even a tiny bit of a Harry Potter fan (is there really such a thing?) then you should check it out.

That’s all for now. I’m currently reading Divergent by Veronica Roth, and I feel a definite recommendation coming on for this one, too. Oh, and a little wonderful birdie told me today that I’ve got an advanced reader’s copy of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races on the way to me. Woohoo! Now my only trouble is going to be finding enough time for all this good stuff.

Pop Culture Adventures — The Crazy World of Dr. Who (and a good luck to the sis)

Anybody besides me looooooooove Netflix? Go on, raise your hand. Or not, since I can’t see you anyways. But seriously. Netflix has become my pop cultural gateway to some old and not-so-old stories. Let’s see. In the past couple years, it’s introduced me to Downton Abbey, Sherlock, Alias, Supernatural (which I now DVR), and of course my beloved Veronica Mars.

But my latest Netflix escapade (and potential love affair?) is Dr. Who, specifically the 2005+ version. I’ve made it through two episodes and been enjoying myself so far, despite some major cheese going on (or maybe because of the cheese?) and the combination soap-opera/porno “look and feel” of the camera work. Still, the cleverness of the dialogue, the Douglas Adams sense of the absurd, and the genuine British accents are enough that I’m quite certain I’ll be sticking around for the duration. I have some issues with how heavy-handed the themes are—like a frying pan would be more subtle—but overall this seems like a lot of fun.

On a side note, I want to wish a big huge “GOOD LUCK” to my sister pictured below) who’s competing in her first Event this weekend (for you non-horse people, it’s like a triathlon, combing dressage, stadium jumping, and cross country). She’s riding a fabulous horse and has a fabulous trainer/coach, and I know she’s going to have a blast and kick butt!