Sybrina Durant's Blog, page 263
October 2, 2019
Unicorn Book Feature – The Changeling of Fenlen Forest by K Magyarody
Unicorns! How we love them. . .Luckily for all of us unicorn lovers there are hundreds of unicorn books available for all age groups. I have gathered information about as many as I can find and have placed them here for you in one convenient spot on my blog. Today’s Unicorn Book Feature is
The Changeling of Fenlen Forest
By Katherine Magyarody
Elizabeth thinks she knows the gloomy Fenlen Forest. But when her treasured unicorn fawn, Sida, goes missing, Elizabeth tracks her into a strange land where the people think Elizabeth is a changeling, a malignant being who too-closely resembles a missing girl. If Elizabeth can find her fawn and uncover the fate of her lost double, can she stop the fear from turning into hate? To solve the deepening mystery, Elizabeth befriends a handsome, skeptical young shepherd whose stories hint at a dark secret lurking at the forest’s edge, and tame a herd of wild unicorns with the ability to unlock the past.
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Find hundreds of unicorn books for all ages at Sybrina’s Blue Unicorn Book Store.
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October 1, 2019
The Blue Unicorn’s Journey To Osm Reader Review by Jennifer R
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jennifer RadmallFormat: Kindle EditionIn the Tribe of Metal Horned Unicorns there is a prophecy that tells of a unicorn who will save them from the evil sorceress Magh who uses their horns and hooves for spells, but when he is finally born the Blue Unicorn has no metal in his horn. Without a metal horn the Blue Unicorn has no magic, but he still must find a way to save his people or they will all be doomed.Along the his way on the perilous journey he has the help of many friends, like Gaiso the Stag and Girasol the Firebird. With the help of both forest friends and magical friends alike, Blue Unicorn must battle his way through the magical land of MarBryn to get his tribe back to Unimaise or face extinction.The cover art caught my eye as soon as I saw it and I was delighted to find that the same vibrant and detailed illustrations are found throughout the entire book. A map in the beginning of the book make it easy for readers to follow both the Blue Unicorn’s journey and the separate trek of his Tribe as they make their way to Muzika Woods. Each section has a small black and white illustration and is only two pages of text, making it easy to pick up and put down. Following each section is a full-color 2 page spread version of the black and white picture on the text page. The formatting in the e-book great, but is best enjoyed on a color tablet or computer screen to get the full color illustrations.Seeing each of the unicorns special abilities corresponding to each unicorns unique metal horn is creative. Although Blue is without magic, he certainly isn’t helpless and his ability to stay positive throughout the book definitely helps him on the way. The writing style is appropriate for the age category. The story moves at a steady pace and kept me hooked from beginning to end. Readers should be warned of the inclusion of death near that end, which may be too dark for younger readers.This coming-of-age story is sure to delight fantasy and unicorn enthusiasts.
September 30, 2019
Unicorn Reader – Unicorn Moms Read To Their Young Tee Shirt
It comes in
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September 29, 2019
Unicorn Book Feature – One Horn To Rule Them All by Various Authors
Unicorns! How we love them. . .Luckily for all of us unicorn lovers there are hundreds of unicorn books available for all age groups. I have gathered information about as many as I can find and have placed them here for you in one convenient spot on my blog. Today’s Unicorn Book Feature is
One Horn To Rule Them All
A Purple Unicorn Anthology
By Various Authors
Unicorns, with their single ivory horn, are elusive and magical creatures of myth. Yet even more elusive are the purple unicorns.
First sighted at the Superstars Writing Seminar, their legend has grown year after year until it could only be contained in this anthology. Nineteen storytellers, including Peter S. Beagle, Todd McCaffrey, and Jody Lynn Nye, as well as new and rising authors, invite us into worlds both near and far, across a desert oasis, a pet shop, a Comic-Con exhibition floor, and more, and show us the many variations of purple unicorns, from the imaginary to the actual—and one very memorable half-unicorn, half-potato.
One Horn to Rule Them All is an unforgettable collection of imagination and creativity. So, saddle up, and take a ride beyond the rainbow.
All profits benefit the Superstars Writing Seminar Scholarship Fund.
Get it at Amazon.
Find hundreds of unicorn books for all ages at Sybrina’s Blue Unicorn Book Store.
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September 28, 2019
Journey To Osm – The Blue Unicorn’s Tale Reader Review by LL Thomsen
Reader Review by LL Thomsen
L.L. Thomsen
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September 27, 2019
Unicorn Book Feature – Magical World of Unicorns by Michael Hague
Unicorns! How we love them. . .Luckily for all of us unicorn lovers there are hundreds of unicorn books available for all age groups. I have gathered information about as many as I can find and have placed them here for you in one convenient spot on my blog. Today’s Unicorn Book Feature is
Magical World of Unicorns
By Michael Hague
Michael Hague has long believed in magic — the magic of unicorns. For years, his classic unicorn illustrations have sparked our imaginations, showcasing this mythical creature and its enchanted world. Here, Hague’s paintings are brought together in one handsome volume and matched with excerpts from stories, poems, and legends to create a wondrous world of beauty and nostalgia. This dramatic presentation will transport you to the farthest reaches of your own imagination, and inspire you to share the magic with generations to come.
Get it at Amazon.
Find hundreds of unicorn books for all ages at Sybrina’s Blue Unicorn Book Store.
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Lone Star Book Blog Tours – Angel Thieves by Kathi Appelt
ANGEL THIEVES
by
KATHI APPELT
Young Adult / Magical Realism / Historical / Contemporary
Publisher: Atheneum / Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Date of Publication: March 12, 2019
Number of Pages: 336
Scroll down for the giveaway!
An ocelot. A slave. An angel thief.
Multiple perspectives spanning across time are united through themes of freedom, hope, and faith in a most unusual and epic novel from Newbery Honor–winning author and National Book Award finalist Kathi Appelt.
Sixteen-year-old Cade Curtis is an angel thief. After his mother’s family rejected him for being born out of wedlock, he and his dad moved to the apartment above a local antique shop. The only payment the owner Mrs. Walker requests: marble angels, stolen from graveyards, for her to sell for thousands of dollars to collectors. But there’s one angel that would be the last they’d ever need to steal; an angel, carved by a slave, with one hand open and one hand closed. If only Cade could find it…
Zorra, a young ocelot, watches the bayou rush past her yearningly. The poacher who captured and caged her has long since lost her, and Zorra is getting hungrier and thirstier by the day. Trapped, she only has the sounds of the bayou for comfort—but it tells her help will come soon.
Before Zorra, Achsah, a slave, watched the very same bayou with her two young daughters. After the death of her master, Achsah is free, but she’ll be damned if her daughters aren’t freed with her. All they need to do is find the church with an angel with one hand open and one hand closed…
In a masterful feat, National Book Award Honoree Kathi Appelt weaves together stories across time, connected by the bayou, an angel, and the universal desire to be free.
CLICK TO PURCHASE
BRAZOS BOOKSTORE ◆ BLUE WILLOW BOOKSHOP ◆ BOOK PEOPLE
AMAZON ◆ BARNES AND NOBLE ◆ INDIEBOUND
PRAISE FOR ANGEL THIEVES:
Spiritual, succinct, and emotionally gripping.
— School Library Journal
A heartfelt love letter to Houston that acknowledges the bad parts of its history while uplifting the good. — BCBB
Shows the best and worst sides of humanity and underscores the powerful force of the bayou, which both holds and erases secrets.
— Publishers Weekly
Narrative strands are like tributaries that begin as separate entities but eventually merge into a single thematic connection: that love, whether lost or found, is always powerful. — Horn Book
Richly drawn and important. — Booklist, starred review
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One Small Sentence
Guest Post by Kathi Appelt
I want to tell you a small part of my experience of writing Angel Thieves. To a certain extent, all of my books feel a bit slippery as they come into being, but this one was like trying to walk a dozen cats on the ends of a dozen leashes. The various story lines kept getting tangled up and twisted. There were moments when I just wanted to toss it all, for sure. And just when I thought I had it in place, it slipped away again.
In fact, the ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) is basically draft #38 out of maybe 52 drafts? (I stopped counting a year ago). Anyways, I made substantial changes to the manuscript after the ARC came out, so if you happen to have one, use it to study and show how a book can change from one draft to another, especially when it comes to the ending.
There are over fifty-thousand words at play here. It took me three years to get those words all arranged in just the right way. And yet . . .
Yet . . .
There was one sentence that just kept eluding me. One critical sentence. Only three words long.
It first occurs on page 83 when my young protagonist Cade has just come face to face with his biological mother for the first time. At six years old, the trauma of it was overwhelming and Cade did the only thing he could think to do—ducked into the bathroom and locked the door.
Minutes later, he hears his dad Paul on the other side of the door, who tells him the best words ever: “I’ll always be right here.” Of course, those are perfect words to say to a kid who has just experienced a major moment in his life. They’re satisfying and comforting and all of that. They work well in that particular time and space.
But fast forward ten years and 213 pages. Now on page 296, Cade is sixteen, and he is the one who is in the position of being the comforter. I wanted him to say those exact best words ever, in an attempt to pull the story threads together. And while “I’ll always be right here,” suffices, it’s just not exactly right.
My friends, that sentence drove me nuts. I kept trying to massage it, to rub it into something more pliable and that suited both instances more fully. I could not figure it out. I kept changing it, kept trying other sentences, other words.
I knew what I wanted both Paul and Cade to express, I knew what their hearts had to say, but the way to say it kept slipping from my grasp. I can’t tell you how frustrating that was.
However, even more frustrating was the moment when I realized the exact right sentence, because by then it was too late. The book had already gone to the printer. I had this eureka moment, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.
The good news is that my wonderful editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy, was able to make the change for the audio edition (which is brilliantly read by my daughter-in-law Laurel Kathleen), and if the book is lucky enough to go to a second printing, then it’ll show up then. But if it doesn’t, I hope you’ll write it in on pages 83 and 296.
“There’s love enough.” This is what Paul should have said to Cade, which in turn Cade says to Zorra. “There’s love enough.”
In so many ways, I feel like that small, three-word sentence is what the entire book is about. It means that when love is present, it doesn’t take mountains of it to create a miracle. It doesn’t require quantification. Love is love is love. When it’s present, there’s enough. And that’s what matters.
Kathi Appelt is the author of the Newbery Honoree, National Book Award finalist, PEN USA Literary Award–winning, and bestselling The Underneath as well as the National Book Award finalist The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, Maybe a Fox (with Alison McGhee), Keeper, and many picture books including Counting Crows and Max … Attacks.
She has two grown children and lives in College Station, Texas, with her husband and their six cats. She serves as a faculty member at Vermont College of Fine Arts in their MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program.
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Learn more by visiting the Angel Thieves Pinterest Boards!
————————————-
GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!
THREE SIGNED COPIES OF ANGEL THIEVES
SEPTEMBER 24-OCTOBER 4, 2019
(U.S. Only)
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September 26, 2019
Goddess Fish Promotions – Fire Song by Tanya Anne Crosby
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Tanya Anne Crosby will be awarding signed copies of the Daughters of Avalon series (3 books)(US ONLY) to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Praised for her beauty and grace, deep down, Seren Pendragon fears a tempest rising inside her. Her mother is a witch, her sisters are in peril, and she has been promised to a beast of a man who’s already murdered one king. When she and her youngest sister seize the opportunity for escape neither realizes how much their struggle will cost, and it will take a terrible tragedy to unleash Seren’s inner fire and true nature.
The Bastard of Warkworth is no stranger to misfortune. Everything he held dear vanished one night in a wisp of smoke and fire, and he has been scarred by his encounters with Seren’s own mother, Morwen Pendragon. Even so, when one of the witch’s daughters finds herself in trouble, Wilhelm must find the champion within and ride to her rescue.
Read an Excerpt
“Where are you going?” she asked in surprise.
“Home,” he said irascibly.
“Nay, my lord—not lest you mean to go by ship. And you’ll not put me on another one after what I have witnessed. You would have to gag and bind me, and tis not very likely I would stand still to allow it.”
“I am not your lord,” he said again. “I’m no man’s lord.” And he kept riding, without bothering to turn back. Seren cast Jack a bewildered glance. The boy shrugged.
It was her habit, she supposed, to call every man of consequence lord. Somehow, it seemed better to give Wilhelm deference, but he clearly did not like it. And yet, he behaved like a willful lord, doing whatsoever pleased, keeping whatever pace he saw fit, and never bothering to ask what Seren would like to do. Hadn’t he said he was here to help? Well, he hadn’t had very much to say since insisting she accept his aid.
“Wait here,” she said to Jack, and spurred her mare to catch up with the sour-faced lout. “I do not mean to disparage you,” she confessed. “Tis but that you seem more a lord to me than most lords do.”
He grunted in answer, but kept going, and Seren frowned.
How was she supposed to travel with his man, who seemed so intent upon ignoring her? He hadn’t said much of anything since retrieving Jack.
“What in the name of St. Afan would you have me call you if not lord?”
“Wilhelm,” he replied. “And since when do you Pendragon sisters swear by the name of saints?”
Seren lifted her chin. “I lived most of my life in a priory,” she informed him. And then she whispered, “I cannot very well swear by the Goddess, can I? Else Jack will wonder.”
“Well,” he said. “That’s your fault. Had you left the boy in Dover you wouldn’t have to pretend you are someone you are not. And anyway, I doubt he knows St. Afan, either.”
Had he somehow taken offense? “Do you know St. Afan?”
“Nay,” he said. “And neither do I aspire to. He’s some Welshman, by the sounds of him. But, more importantly, do you know who he is?”
Seren frowned. “Nay, sir. I do not,” she confessed. “Though I did hear Father Ersinius invoke him on occasion. I am not so much impressed by saints.”
“What are you impressed by?”
Seren bristled. She was not going to confess herself to this impertinent stranger. “What I wouldst like to know is what you wish me to call you if not lord—can you, please, stop! Please?” She reined in her horse, peering back at Jack, who was staring at them with furrowed brows.
“Nay,” he replied, without turning.
Seren sighed, and moved forward once more. “Where are you going?”
“Home, I said.”
She furrowed her brow. “You are not going home! Did you not read that sign? You are going to Ramsgate, returning to the ocean, and, once again, I will remind you that lest you have a ship, or you and your horse would like to have a good swim, the road to Canterbury is the road best traveled.”
Finally, he stopped, turning to look at her, and his cheeks appeared to bloom. Without a word, he spun his mare about, trotting back toward Jack, who was still waiting right where Seren left him. Wilhelm passed him by, never sparing him or the signpost a glance.
He couldn’t read, she realized, with blinding insight.
About the Author:
Tanya Anne Crosby is the New York Times/USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels, including works of women’s fiction, suspense, historical romance and fantasy. Known for stories charged with emotion and humor and filled with flawed characters, she is an award-winning author, and her stories have garnered reader praise and glowing critical reviews.
Tanya has been featured in magazines, such as People, Romantic Times and Publisher’s Weekly, and her stories have been translated into eight languages. Her first novel (Angel of Fire) was published in 1992 by Avon Books, where she was hailed as “one of Avon’s fastest rising stars.” Her fourth book (Once Upon a Kiss) was chosen to launch the company’s Avon Romantic Treasure imprint. She and her writer husband currently split their time between Charleston, SC, where she was raised, and northern Michigan, where the couple make their home.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tanyaannecrosby/
Website: https://www.tanyaannecrosby.com/
Buy Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Daughters-Avalon-Tanya-Crosby/dp/1947204378
KOBO: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/fire-song-11
BN: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fire-song-tanya-anne-crosby/1130052932
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September 24, 2019
The Blue Unicorn’s Journey To Osm Reader Review by Sherry F
Reader Review by Sherry F
By
He is supposed to be their savior. But how can that be possible? He has no magic.He feels an outsider, he just doesn’t fit in. Does anyone feel a touch of Rudolph in this?The fun, colorful, imaginative illustrations are wonderful, filled with fantastical creatures, both good and bad.Each creature is unique, individual, just like in real life.Is there such a thing as a fish unicorn? If so, imagine the possibilities.Set your imagination free.The Blue Unicorn…reads like old time fairy tales…where life and death choices are made…And …maybe, you will learn why you never see a unicorn.This magical fantasy filled with fun and humor, sadness and happiness, and lessons learned. We are not alone.
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September 23, 2019
Sybrina’s Blue Unicorn Book Store – Unicorn Sneakers
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Sybrina’s Blue Unicorn Book Store
Where you’ll find unicorns, more unicorns and nothing but unicorns! Visit now.
Brought to you by Journey To Osm
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