Mundie Moms

Monday, February 28, 2011

Reelz Channels TMI Facebook Challenge

Have you seen or played the new Reelz Channels Mortal Instruments Facebook Challenge?

Here's a little bit about it- The new ReelzChannel Mortal Instruments fans Facebook app, ClusterFlick, allows players to put the concept of six degrees of separation to the test using movie and celebrity information. You’ve watched hundreds, maybe thousands of movies, and ClusterFlick puts those movie memories to the test. Take our daily challenge or create your own. Earn top scores and invite your friends to see if they can do better.

Check it out and let us know what you guys think.

The Vespertine Blog Tour


We are so excited to be hosting The Vespertine Blog Tour, which kicks off on March 1st!!


Be sure to stop by and visit these sites which will be sharing their reviews, interviews with Saundra, character interviews, guest posts from Saundra and more, and collect each of the unique cards created for their site. They will be posted either on their side bars on in their blog tour posts.


March 2011

7th and 8th- The Story Siren

20th and 21st- Book Nerds

31st- LIVE author chat on Mundie Moms

1st- Saundra Mitchell's site


Here's a little bit about the book. Click on the links to be taking to The Vespertine site, the publisher's site and Saundra Mitchell's site.


THE VESPERTINE

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt


The summer of 1889 is the one between childhood and womanhood for Amelia van den Broek-and thankfully, she's not spending it at home in rural Maine. She's been sent to Baltimore to stay with her stylish cousin, Zora, who will show her all the pleasures of city life and help her find a suitable man to marry.


Archery in the park, dazzling balls and hints of forbidden romance-Victorian Baltimore is more exciting than Amelia imagined. But her gaiety is interrupted by disturbing, dreamlike visions she has only at sunset-visions that offer glimpses of the future. Soon, friends and strangers alike call on Amelia to hear her prophecies. Newly dubbed "Maine's Own Mystic", Amelia is suddenly quite in demand.


However, her attraction to Nathaniel, an artist who is decidedly outside of Zora's circle, threatens the new life Amelia is building in Baltimore. This enigmatic young man is keeping secrets of his own- still, Amelia finds herself irrepressibly drawn to him. And while she has no trouble seeing the futures of others, she cannot predict whether Nathaniel will remain in hers.


When one of her darkest visions comes to pass, Amelia's world is thrown into chaos. And those around her begin to wonder if she's not the seer of dark portents, but the cause.

Book Review- By These Ten Bones

Published by Square Fish
Re-Released on February 15th, 2011
Source- Book from the publisher
3.5 Stars- It's a good read

There's hidden places all over this land-old, old places. Places with a chain for them to chain up the wolf when it's time.

A bone-chilling tale of werewolves and love, set in medieval Scotland

A mysterious young man has come to a small Highland town. His talent for wood carving soon wins the admiration of the weaver's daughter, Maddie. Fascinated by the silent carver, she sets out to gain his trust, only to find herself drawn into a terrifying secret that threatens everything she loves.

There is an evil presence in the carver's life that cannot be controlled, and Maddie watches her town fall under a shadow. One by one, people begin to die. Caught in the middle, Maddie must decide what matters most to her-and what price she is willing to pay to keep it (quoted from Goodreads).

When a mysterious mute, wood carver visits Maddie's village, she can't help but be drawn to him. Getting his attention is going to be harder than Maddie realizes. After her village has given up on him and deemed him an idiot, Maddie can't help herself and she wants to know more about him. Not one for words, this piercing green eyed, angst stranger isn't willing to give away his secrets. After a turn of events and an attack from an evil shadow like creature, Carver, as Maddie calls him, ends up being taking care of by her mother. During his recovery Carver begins to slowly open up to Maddie about what he is, and the danger she and her village are in.

Maddie and Carver aren't in-depth characters, but with the story reading more like a folklore, I felt I got to know them enough to understand them and the choices they make. Both are similar, as both are like outsiders to those around them. Maddie is one of the few younger people who live in small remote village and Carver has a dark secret that keeps him from getting close to anyone. It wasn't hard to see why these two felt drawn to each other. I liked seeing how the two of them became closer and learned to trust each other. I also like that the werewolf isn't like traditional wolves, but is more of shadow creature that lurks in the darkest places of the night during the full moon, which makes this creature dark and erie.

What I enjoyed most about Clare Dunkle's By These Ten Books is the unique werewolf mythology and it's beautiful setting. Set in medieval Scotland among it's highlands gives an air of mystery and intrigue to the book. Truthfully, the setting and lore are what made me want to read the book, and kept my interest through out the story. These key elements play just as big of a role in the story as the characters do, and really set the tone for the book.

I enjoyed this fascinating spin on werewolf mythology and I recommend picking it up. It's a good read. You can read our interview with Clare here

Blog Stop with By These Ten Bones author Clare Dunkle

Today we have By These Ten Bones author, Clare Dunkle with us. I've quickly become a fan of Clare's works, as her books have an air of mystery, suspense and are at times a little dark. By These Ten Bones is a fascinating book with an intriguing werewolf lore set in the beautiful country of Scotland. Here's a little bit about the book-

Published by Square Fish
Re-Released on February 15th, 2011

There's hidden places all over this land-old, old places. Places with a chain for them to chain up the wolf when it's time.

A bone-chilling tale of werewolves and love, set in medieval Scotland

A mysterious young man has come to a small Highland town. His talent for wood carving soon wins the admiration of the weaver's daughter, Maddie. Fascinated by the silent carver, she sets out to gain his trust, only to find herself drawn into a terrifying secret that threatens everything she loves.

There is an evil presence in the carver's life that cannot be controlled, and Maddie watches her town fall under a shadow. One by one, people begin to die. Caught in the middle, Maddie must decide what matters most to her-and what price she is willing to pay to keep it (quoted from Goodreads).


How would you describe your book, By These Ten Bones?
I don’t think of BY THESE TEN BONES as a scary book. To me, it’s a love story with scary moments. And although it’s fantasy, the details concerning medieval Scotland have been vetted as carefully as if it were historical fiction. Maddie, the town weaver’s daughter, becomes interested in a pale, green-eyed woodcarver comes to her tiny town in the Highlands. He won’t talk to her at first, but she refuses to give up and gradually gains his trust. But when an evil creature attacks the carver and leaves him almost dead, she learns a terrifying secret about him—a secret that threatens the lives of everyone she knows. Soon people in her town begin to die, and Maddie has to decide what to do.

I love a great werewolf story. What inspired you to write a werewolf book? How is your werewolf lore unique?
When this book first came out in 2005, werewolves weren’t the celebrities they are nowadays, but J.K. Rowling had put one in her books, and reading about Professor Lupin got me thinking about how interesting werewolves can be. I had just finished dealing with goblins, dwarves, and elves, and I love monsters and magic. Werewolves seemed like a logical next step.

Two things color my interpretation of werewolf lore. First, I don’t see wolves as part of the “dark side.” To me, they’re fascinating, intelligent animals with an appeal of their own, so I have trouble associating them with the “wolf” phase of a werewolf’s life, in which he or she is completely unable to maintain control and winds up slaughtering people at random.

The second thing that colors my interpretation is a childhood dread of rabies. A rabid wolf bites a man; that man then becomes rabid and attacks his own family in his frenzy—doesn’t that sound a lot like a werewolf? And the wolf isn’t to blame here. The virus is the real killer. So my “werewolf” is a supernatural parasite traveling from host to host like a disease germ instead of being a member of the dog family. I’m more afraid of rabies germs than wolves!

What do you admire about Maddie?
I love Maddie’s confidence. When she can’t get the carver to speak to her at first, she doesn’t hang her head and wonder what’s wrong with her. She looks for clues to his problems instead. And I love her optimism. She’s ready to help anybody who needs help, and it doesn’t even occur to her that some problems might be beyond helping. I also love her comfortable relationship with her parents, which comes from my history research. Quite often, Highlanders lived their whole lives within a few hundred yards of their extended families. Maybe because they knew they would be together for a lifetime, they tended to get along, and historical Highland culture has little record of the parent-teen conflict that we assume is going to happen to everyone we know in modern America.

What author has had a huge impact on you as either a reader or/and an author?
J.R.R. Tolkien had a tremendous impact on me and my writing. I came across his works quite early: I read his books around the age of nine or ten and reread them obsessively for the next several years. I even memorized all the LORD OF THE RINGS poetry!

Tolkien’s writing is uneven, but I took a lot away from those books and those poems. Take, for instance, a verse like this one:

“Cold be hand and heart and bone,
And cold be sleep under stone:
Never more to wake on stony bed,
Never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
In the black wind the stars shall die,
and still on gold here let them lie,
till the dark lord lifts his hand
over dead sea and withered land.” (from THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, Ch. 8)

These are simple, strong words: cold, bone, sleep, stone, die, gold, hand. They combine to form images that are startling because they are so direct: black wind, dark lord, dead sea. There’s nothing flowery here at all, and that’s why it works. Tolkien, a linguist and scholar of Anglo-Saxon, understood very well how to treat the old words of our language with respect.

To this day, when I read a word like “bone,” echoes from Tolkien’s pages come back to me. I think that’s why I wanted the word “bone” in the title of BY THESE TEN BONES. But the title isn’t a quotation from Tolkien. It’s actually Shakespeare’s line, from the play HENRY VI.

What do you enjoy doing when you're not writing?
I’m the glue that holds my family together and keeps our home livable and lovable. That’s a fulltime job by itself! And I love it. I also like reading and researching the next book. And daydreaming, of course—I can never get enough of that.

Since we're huge fans of paranormal books, what is one paranormal talent you'd like to have?
The old Rumpelstiltskin ability to spin straw into gold would be pretty sweet. That would keep the wolves from the door!

__________________________________________


Thank you so much Clare for being with us today!

To learn more about By These Ten Bones please go here.

You can read a sample of the book here .

You can see what Mattie's world looks like here

To learn more about Clare and her writing, be sure to visit her site here

Be sure to stop by The Hate-Mongering Tart at:http://www.ekristinanderson.com/, the next stop on Clare's tour.

Mundane Monday #74

Happy Monday! Today we have a nice little teaser from Vania's CoFA trailer.....


Want to see more? I know I do!!! Be sure to subscribe to her youtube account here, as she'll be sharing more teasers and will be posting the trailer SOON!!

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Alex Pettyfer Accepts Hollywood Crush's Advice for playing Jace

This interview is great, as not only does Hollywood Crush offer Alex great advice, but he jokingly accepts it. He also says she'a romantic... I know you guys are all sighing now.


We have to say we agree with Hollywood Crush.
You can also find a link for this interview in Cassie's latest email she sent out to her google group.

Book Review- Mieradome

Published by Author House
Released on November 20th, 2010
Source- ARC from the author for review
2.5 Stars- I wanted to like it more than I did

Mieradome pulls the reader into a unique fantasy world of faeries and technology, a different take on the Alice in Wonderland concept. The story revolves around a young girl named Amavia who believes she is a human girl, but slowly comes to find she is a faery in the world of Mieradome. Slowly who Amavia was began to unravel to show the truth; the truth that she just may be the evil they need to destroy. This is the first novel in a series, and gives a glimpse of what is to come for the main character Amavia (quoted from Goodreads).

Mieradome has a great premise with it's magic, fairytale lore, and at times it reminded me of A Mid Summer Night's Dream as the story reads like volume of classic literature.

I really loved the story's idea- the main character is a girl, Amavia who's really a fairy living in the human world, but she doesn't know who she is until she journeys back to the place her mother took her from years ago. Upon returning to Mieradome, Amavia finds out more of her heritage and who she really is. There's some great twists, some action, a great fairy lore and a nice romance that I found really intriguing. Even with a great story line, a great love triangle between Cadin who I adored and then Garin, who really surprised me, and a strong protagonist, I felt the story fell short for me.

I had a hard time connecting with the story, as there were a few things missing for me. There were times I felt scenes were too rushed and other scenes left a little incomplete. Having some key things mentioned in the middle and towards the end of the book was a little frustrating, as I would have love to see these things explored more through out the story. The characters weren't as in-depth as I would have liked them to be, and felt I really didn't get to know them/connect them, as I wasn't able to understand or read what they were thinking/feeling. There were a lot of characters introduced into the story, which was a little confusing at times. In the end I felt I got to know more about the beautifully detailed world, than I did the characters. There were some great characters introduced into the story that I really wanted to know more about.

There is a lot that goes on in Mieradome, and I really enjoyed the history and the world building with the story. I enjoy a well written love triangle, which the story has. I started off really adoring Cadin, I mean it was hard not to, but then Kate threw a total surprise at me with Gavin. I also like the twists with Amavia's mom. I won't say more, as I want to leave this spoiler free. Being the first book in a series, there were a lot of questions answered and some left unanswered, which I'm looking forward to finding answers for in the next book. While I'm mixed on my feelings with the book, I would recommend to those who enjoy reading about fairies. I am looking forward to reading the sequel, as I want to know what happens with some of the characters and the direction the story takes.

Weekly Feature & In My Mailbox


I'm switching gears and instead of just posting about what we received in our mailbox each week, I'm also going to combine a new feature we've been talking about doing on Mundie Moms. Our Weekly Feature will list some of the things we'll have on Mundie Moms for the coming week, like reviews, author chats, interviews etc (which are also listed on our right hand side bar).

This week on MM's we're hosting and kicking off Saundra Mitchell's The Vespertine blog tour, which is taking place through out the month of March. You can find out which sites are taking part in the tour, their tour stops and read about the book here

We'll be chatting with Karen Mahoney, author of The Iron Witch on Tuesday, March 1st @ 6 pm CST! It's a new time, as we don't want to keep Karen up all night, since she is a few hours ahead of us. We're looking forward to chatting with her about her debut book.

This week we'll be reading/reviewing-
* These Ten Bones by Clare B Dunkle
* The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell
* The Liar Society by Lisa Roecker & Laura Roecker
* Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins
* Lemniscate by Jennifer Murgia
* Haven by Kristi Cook

In My Mailbox- (In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren where we share what books we've received through out the week either for review, that we purchased, borrowed or were gifted.
For Review-
* Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton, published by Simon Pulse, released on February 22nd, 2011
* The Dark and Hollow Place by Carrie Ryan, published Delacorte Books for Young Readers, to be released on March 22nd, 2011
* Father of Lies by Ann Turner, published by Harper Teen, released on February 8th, 2011
* Priscilla The Great by Sybil Nelson, published by WorldMaker Media, released on December 13th, 2010

Bought
* The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell
* Will Work For Prom Dress by Aimee Ferris
* Haven by Kristi Cook
* Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress series) by Jeaniene Frost *not pictured
* One Foot in the Grave (Night Huntress series) by Jeaniene Frost *not pictured

Thank you to Simon and Schuster, Random House, Harper Teen, Sybil Nelson, The Teen Book Scene for this weeks awesome reads. What goodies did you receive this week?

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Book Review- Father of Lies


By Ann Turner
Published by Harper Teen
Released on Feburary 8th, 2011
Source- ARC to read/review from publisher
3.5 stars- It's A Good Read

Truth or Lies?

Lidda knew, with a clarity that was like a candle in a dark room, that all had changed; something was loosed in the village—Devil or not—and they would pay for it, every last man, woman, and child.

Fourteen-year-old Lidda has always known she was different. She longs to escape Salem Village and its stifling rules—to be free to dance, to sing, to live as she chooses. But when a plague of accusations descends on the village and witch fever erupts, L idda begins to realize that she feels and sees things that others can't, or won't. But how will she expose the truth without being hung as a witch herself?

Gripping and emotional, Ann Turner's retelling of the Salem witch trials captures one girl's brave soul-searching amidst a backdrop of fear and blame (quoted from Goodreads)

Father of Lies is the re-telling of the Salem Witch Trials, but with a few twists. Unlike some of the stories that are written surrounding this event, Ann Turner brings her story to life by keeping crucial historical parts of the story, as well as introducing a new perspective on these events. Keeping some of the names we've all read about it before, Ann introduces a fresh face to the story with her character Lidda. Ann not only puts Lidda at the center of the Witch Trails, but Lidda hears and sees the devil, whom is thought to be the reason why so many of the village's people are going crazy. Lucian doesn't mean any harm to Lidda, in fact, she's drawn to this dark, good looking, powerful being, who lurks in her shadows. She realizes that Lucian has nothing to do with the evil that has come to Salem.

What drew me to Lidda is she's one of the few characters to think for herself. So goes against the norm as so many of the Puritan women and even people during this time do not think for themselves and allow the "father" to think for them. Through out the story I found myself torn between thinking Lidda is either hallucinating, like so many of the other towns people are as they claim to see the devil in various forms, or she has bi-polar. Lucian is constantly communicating with her, and no one else, as no one can see or hear him except Lidda. I liked at the end of the story Ann talks about both bi-polar and the Salem Witch Trails more in depth, and outside of what is discussed in the story.

Ann molds her story perfectly, as it's so easy to understand why so many innocent people were killed and accused of being witches. Seeing this happen through Lidda's eyes brought realism to the story, as Lidda's friends where both the girls being accused and the ones going around accusing innocent people of being witches. Lidda is a character I came to admire, as in a time period when women weren't allowed to think for themselves, and let alone voice their opinions, she's the only one who stands up and says anything about the mass hysteria and all the lies that are being said. In the end you're left wondering if Lidda really is suffering from a mental illness or maybe she is telling the truth and really can see and talk to the devil. Either way, this girl has a strength and backbone no one else had.

I really enjoyed the setting, as it's rich in detail and I felt like I was getting a glimpse of what it was like in Salem, MA in the 1600's, with the social structure, beliefs, family dynamics and so on. I think Ann does the best job at bringing this story to life. If you're a fan of reading about this time period, I would recommend picking this book up.

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