Merry Sisters of Fate

Authors Tessa Gratton, Maggie Stiefvater, and Brenna Yovanoff post short stories on a livejournal called Merry Sisters of Fate. And I'm here to tell you about my favorite story; it's for a contest. It's really hard to just choose one, so I decided to pick one that I really loved by each of them. And even that was really difficult.

The Sun in Love by Tessa Gratton

The Deadlier of the Species by Maggie Stiefvater

Glass by Brenna Yovanoff

I love all three of those stories and I definitely couldn't have picked only one. And there a lot of other great stories, so everyone should go check them out!

Linger

author: Maggie Stiefvater

published: July 13th 2010

series: The Wolves of Mercy Falls

place in series: number 2 of 3

publisher: Scholastic

format: hardcover

pages: 362

The following synopsis comes from Maggie's Mercy Falls website.

In Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabel, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

My Thoughts:

The Cover: This cover is love. It goes with the Shiver cover completely, but it is its own. This cover shows the promise of the springtime which is quickly upon those of Mercy Falls, while the Shiver cover was more wintery which was a huge part of that novel. This cover is beautiful. I love it, and I can't wait to see the cover of Forever. Perhaps it'll be red, or purple. Who knows?!

The Story: I absolutely LOVED Shiver. So, needless to say, my expectations of Linger were high. They did not go wanting. Linger was most definitely its own novel. Sometimes, sequels are very much like its predecessor and it's only a variation of the unresolved problems in the first novel. But, with Linger it was so much more. There was a new character: Cole. And two new narrators: Cole and Isabel. Linger is told from four points of view. You might think that it gets confusing. Well, it doesn't. They all have distinct voices so it's hardly a problem keeping them straight.

Another big thing I noticed about Linger (and Shiver) is that Grace is NOT annoying. In Linger, Grace is keeping a secret; a rather big, important, LIFE CHANGING secret. In other books I've read, when the heroine is keeping a secret like this, it's almost annoying. With Linger, Grace just isn't talking about it and for reasons that are justifiable.

She just isn't annoying, okay? Take my word for it. I really like Grace. She is still the same person she was in Shiver, except this time she's becoming more of the girl she always has been.

Then, there's Sam. Oh, Sam. Compassionate, caring Sam. He is a great character and I wish he was a real person; he's someone I want to be friends with. He is coming to terms with what happened in the end of Shiver. He's trying to live his life and it's all very realistic.

Isabel and Cole are great additions to the story. And I think I'll leave it at that. You just have to read it.

Linger definitely lives up to the standards of Shiver. When I wasn't reading, I was thinking about it and I dreamt about it as well. I'm addicted to The Wolves of Mercy Falls.

Linger gets five stars from me.

LINGER trailer!

Maggie Stiefvater has made another trailer! It is fantastic! This one is for Linger, the sequel to the beloved NYT Best Selling novel Shiver.

It wouldn't be fair to keep this information to myself. By posting this I'm also entered in a contest! I LOVE posting trailers and if I can win something by doing it, that's an awesome bonus! (click the link to read about the contest!)

So, she also has a post on her blog about HOW she made the trailer which is totally informative and almost as entertaining as the actual trailer! You can view part one, part two, part three, and part four on her blog. (click the links!)

Something everyone should know is that both trailers were made with THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of paper cut outs and she composed the music! She even plays it along with her brother and sister. Now, that's dedication. I highly recommend that you read about how she did it!

In case you haven't already seen her stop motion trailer for Shiver, it's below. It is also beautiful! If you haven't read Shiver, do it NOW!

Linger is set for release on July 20th 2010! That's 71 days from now.

Kiss Me Deadly Anthology

I was reading Sarah Rees Brennan's blog sarahtales (she's the author of The Demon's Lexicon, which I love) and it turns out she has a story in an upcoming anthology among other authors. Kiss Me Deadly is an anthology of 13 paranormal love stories! I am so excited!

Turns out it's a follow-up to The Eternal Kiss which I have not read, but I will be reading soon. I hope. AP Lit has my reading pretty much limited to the books for the class. (We're starting A Clockwork Orange. It's full of made-up words I don't understand. I think I like it!)

Anyone who has read my reviews knows that I love short stories. They also might be able to infer that I love paranormal love stories. This is definitely made for me. (And anyone like me. But I feel like they have me in mind. :P)

Now, my question is: how did I not know about this sooner? Especially because Maggie Stiefvater is featured in it and she's my favorite author. Why didn't I know? I read her blog and I would think I would remember her posting about this...I'm assuming this means she hasn't. And that makes me wonder why? But, that's not the issue here anyway. Unless this is one of her secret projects! OH! Maybe...maybe not. I'm pretty sure she said the secret project was a novel. Maybe not.

So, the authors that will be featured in the seemingly fantastical anthology are as follows:

Becca Fitzpatrick (Hush, Hush)

Caitlin Kittredge (Night Life) her story is Behind the Red Door

Karen Mahoney (The Iron Witch)

Justine Musk (Blood Angel)

Diana Peterfreund (Rampant) her story is Errant

Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon) her story is The Spy Who Never Grew Up

Michelle Rowen (Demon Princess)

Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth)

Maggie Stiefvater (Shiver)

Rachel Vincent (My Soul to Save)

Daniel Waters (Generation Dead)

[EDIT] Maggie Stiefvater has posted a blog post (redundant?) about Kiss Me Deadly and has named the two missing authors! Daniel Marks and Michelle Zink (Prophecy of the Two Sisters)

Everywhere I've looked I've only come up with eleven authors...maybe two authors are writing more than one? I don't know.

I have to admit that I haven't read anything by most of them. Actually, I've only read books by Maggie Stiefvater and Sarah Rees Brennan. I've heard of some of the others! And some are on my Goodreads list! I recently bought Hush, Hush and I can't wait to read it! I've just become suddenly busy with schoolwork and can't read as much (or as quickly) as usual. Oh, summer break, how I long for thee!

Maggie Stiefvater's New Book Deals!

Maggie posted earlier on her blog, Words on Words, about her new book deal(s)! This is so exciting!

Scholastic has made a deal for Forever, the third installment in the Wolves of Mercy Falls (Shiver) series and three new stand-alone novels.

She can't tell us what the novel after Forever will be; she said she's very excited about it though. I can't wait to find out! I absolutely loved Shiver, Lament, and Ballad so I'm very excited for what she has in store. Read the original post on her livejournal here or her blogspot here.

Sunday Series [2]

This week I'm comparing the covers in The Books of Faerie by Maggie Stiefvater.

The first of the series, Lament, has had two covers. The first one (above far left) was the original cover (October '08) and inside the book has pictures in the same style has the cover. They were really beautiful and I loved them.

The new cover (above middle)came out sometime in March or April of 2009 I believe. I'm not positive. I'm guessing from these posts on Maggie's blog, Words on Words. The new cover came about to go with the cover of Ballad (above far right)

Lament: The first cover is really cool because it has the pictures on the inside too! It's different than most covers because it's mostly grays with bits of red which really pop!

The second cover is great too. I full understand why they chose the clovers and the dagger. The dagger is actually shiny =D The clovers make perfect sense as they are a recurring item throughout Lament. It's great. I, personally, think that the second cover is more likely to get someone to stop and look in a store or online than the first.

Ballad: This cover also makes perfect sense. FIRE! It's a recurring item Ballad as clovers were in Lament. I really don't have much else to say on the subject of the cover except that I like it and it matches the second Lament cover.

I'm really glad that Flux decided to make a new cover for Lament. It's not that I didn't like the first cover, but if they're going to have a completely different type of cover for the sequel, then why not change it? The two (current) covers are definitely cohesive. And really, that's all I care about!

Maggie did a really cool mock up of what she would have liked for the cover of Ballad and it's pretty darn close to the actual cover. You can see that on her blog here.

Maggie has no plans at the moment to continue the series as she's finishing up the third book, Forever, in The Wolves of Mercy Falls series and her "secret project". Although, I believe I read in her FAQs that she does have other stories for them, they're just not going to be written yet. I really hope she continues with the characters of The Books of Faerie.

Maggie Stiefvater Giveaway! [I'm so excited!]

In Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Grace and Sam found each other. Now, in Linger, they must fight to be together. For Grace, this means defying her parents and keeping a very dangerous secret about her own well-being. For Sam, this means grappling with his werewolf past . . . and figuring out a way to survive into the future. Add into the mix a new wolf named Cole, whose own past has the potential to destroy the whole pack. And Isabelle, who already lost her brother to the wolves . . . and is nonetheless drawn to Cole.

At turns harrowing and euphoric, Linger is a spellbinding love story that explores both sides of love -- the light and the dark, the warm and the cold -- in a way you will never forget.

Comes out in stores everywhere July 20th. Pre-order here.

Enter to win an advanced review copies of LINGER, Sisters Red, The Dead-Tossed Waves, and The Replacement on Maggie's blog.