P.J. Hoover's Blog, page 51

GUARDIANS OF THE HIDDEN SCEPTER - Winner!

So look for an epic book giveaway coming next week! I have to celebrate SOLSTICE right! I'm already excited just thinking about the books I'm going to give away!

But in the meantime, a huge thank you to everyone who entered to win!

The winner of GUARDIANS OF THE HIDDEN SCEPTER by Frank L. Cole (Cedar Fort, March 8, 2011)

is...

Natalie Aguirre!

*****

And don't forget I'm also giving away

RULES OF ATTRACTION by Simone Elkeles (Walker, April 13, 2010)
CLICK HERE TO ENTER!


THE LIAR SOCIETY by Lisa & Laura Roecker (Sourcebooks, March 1, 2011)
CLICK HERE TO ENTER!

SOLSTICE Shout out!

I'm beyond flattered that Beth Revis featured me and SOLSTICE today as her Bookanista's pick over on her blog! Beth is an OSUM friend, an OSUM writer (which, if you haven't read ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (Razorbill, January 2011) then you totally need to), and I'm fortunate to have her in my life!

You can check it out here!


Thank you, Beth!

THE LIAR SOCIETY Giveaway!

I'm so excited for today's giveaway! I managed to score a copy of this amazing book at TLA, and now I get to share it with you!

THE LIAR SOCIETY by Lisa & Laura Roecker (Sourcebooks, March 1, 2011)


Not only are Lisa & Laura a couple of the coolest people you can meet out there on the Internet, their book rocks! And wait, it's also part of the very osum contest:

iClue
6 YA Authors, 6 Mysteries, 6 Chances to win an iTouch


Check out the book trailer, too!



From Amazon:

Since when do the dead send emails?

Kate Lowry's best friend Grace died a year ago. So when she gets an email from her, Kate's more than a little confused.

To: KateLowry@pemberlybrown.edu
From: GraceLee@pemberlybrown.edu
Subject: (no subject)
Kate,
I'm here... sort of.
Find Cameron. He knows.
I shouldn't be writing.
Don't tell. They'll hurt you.

Now Kate has no choice but to prove once and for all that Grace's death was more than just a tragic accident. She teams up with a couple of knights-in-(not-so)-shining armor-the dangerously hot bad boy, Liam, and her lovestruck neighbor, Seth. But at their elite private school, there are secrets so big people will do anything to protect them-even if it means getting rid of anyone trying to solve a murder...

Source of book: From publisher at TLA

For your chance to win this book, all you need to do is:

1) Follow this blog
2) Comment on this blog post

For extra entries:

1) Blog about this contest and leave a comment telling me
2) Tweet about this contest and leave a comment telling me
3) Also, if you've never won one of my contests, please tell me in the comments, and you'll get an extra entry!

And make sure you leave me a way to get in contact with you when you win!

The contest will run through midnight on Friday, May 13, 2011!

*****

Don't forget I'm also giving away:

RULES OF ATTRACTION by Simone Elkeles (Walker, April 13, 2010)
CLICK HERE TO ENTER!



GUARDIANS OF THE HIDDEN SCEPTER by Frank L. Cole (Cedar Fort, March 8, 2011)
CLICK HERE TO ENTER!

Favorite Quotes

In the event you've peeked around my website, then you've probably noticed I have a favorite quote or song lyric at the top of each page. There are so many great ones, so when the osum Lindsey Lane asked me to guest blog today about my favorite quote, I couldn't settle on one, but I did manage to narrow it down to two.

Head over to Lindsey's fantastic blog to check out what they are!

And I hope your week is going great!

SOLSTICE—The Book Trailer

If sharing the news about SOLSTICE wasn't enough, I also get to share with you guys the official book trailer for SOLSTICE!


Hope you enjoy watching, and please feel free to repost :)

Spring Blog Carnival - Win RULES OF ATTRACTION by Simone Elkeles

It's time for another blog hop, and this time it's hosted by some amazing people I have to mention! Thank you so much to:

Candace's Book Blog http://www.candacesbookblog
Reading Angel http://www.readingangel.com
Pure Imagination http://www.pureimaginationblog.com
The Book Swarm http://www.bookswarm.blogspot.com

for organizing this Spring Blog Carnival!



So the funnest thing about these blog hops is trying to decide what from my shelves I can give away. This time, up for grabs is the sequel to a book I absolutely adored. It's a shiny hardcover of:

RULES OF ATTRACTION by Simone Elkeles (Walker, April 13, 2010)


I read PERFECT CHEMISTRY in basically one sitting and loved, loved, loved it! It's no wonder RULES OF ATTRACTION hit the bestseller list!

Check out the OSUM book trailer, too!



From Amazon:

Carlos Fuentes doesn't want any part of the life his older brother, Alex, has laid out for him in Boulder, Colorado. He wants to keep living on the edge, and carve his own path—just like Alex did. Unfortunately, his ties to a Mexican gang aren't easy to break, and he soon finds himself being set up by a drug lord.

When Alex arranges for Carlos to live with his former professor and his family to keep him from being sent to jail, Carlos feels completely out of place. He's even more thrown by his strong feelings for the professor's daughter, Kiara, who is nothing like the girls he's usually drawn to. But Carlos and Kiara soon discover that in matters of the heart, the rules of attraction overpower the social differences that conspire to keep them apart.

As the danger grows for Carlos, he's shocked to discover that it's this seemingly All-American family who can save him. But is he willing to endanger their safety for a chance at the kind of life he's never even dreamed possible?

Source of book: From publisher at BEA

For your chance to win this book, all you need to do is:

1) Follow this blog
2) Comment on this blog post

For extra entries:

1) Blog about this contest and leave a comment telling me
2) Tweet about this contest and leave a comment telling me
3) Also, if you've never won one of my contests, please tell me in the comments, and you'll get an extra entry!

And make sure you leave me a way to get in contact with you when you win!

The contest will run through midnight on Sunday, May 8, 2011!

*****

Don't forget I'm also giving away:

GUARDIANS OF THE HIDDEN SCEPTER by Frank L. Cole (Cedar Fort, March 8, 2011)
CLICK HERE TO ENTER!

HARE MOON by Carrie Ryan

I'm a huge fan of THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH, so keeping that in mind, I consider HARE MOON almost required reading for those who love the world Carrie Ryan's created. It's available as an ebook* only, though it was actually part of the short story collection KISS ME DEADLY (Running Press Kids, August 2010).

HARE MOON by Carrie Ryan (Delacorte, April 5, 2011)


HARE MOON is engaging; it's short; and it's heart-breaking (but really, this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone). Highly recommended for Carrie Ryan fans!

*Wait! You say you don't have an ereader? You can download it and read it on your computer, too :)


From Amazon:

Tabitha can't shake the feeling that something exists beyond the fences of her village. And when she sneaks out, past the gates and down the path into the Forest of Hands and Teeth, she meets a boy who teaches her heart things she never knew. But love in a world surrounded by so much death doesn't come without its sacrifices, and Tabitha gradually realizes just how much she'll have to give up to live among the Unconsecrated.

From New York Times bestselling author Carrie Ryan comes an original story of love after the Return.

And in case you aren't familiar with THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH, here's it's book trailer!



Hope the weekend is going great!

And in other news...SOLSTICE!

Here's a really exciting announcement I've been dying to make!

*****

P.J. Hoover and the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc. are excited to announce the May release of P.J.'s debut young adult novel SOLSTICE, an intensely romantic story with an innovative mythological angle. SOLSTICE is set in a disturbing future of uncontrolled climate change -- a future that we might very well be facing.

After eighteen years of endless summer, Earth is dying a slow, hot death. Oceans are wastelands of dead fish, deadly heat bubbles threaten to wipe out entire cities, and the soil is so desiccated that plants are in danger of extinction. This is Piper's reality, and her domineering, overprotective mother makes it even more suffocating.

Piper's best friend Chloe is her only outlet from the bleak reality within and without. However, when Piper rebels by secretly opening a mysterious birthday present and getting a tattoo with Chloe, she just exchanges her Global Heating Crisis nightmare for a mythological one.

Suddenly, Piper's world teems with murderous, deceitful gods, legendary monsters, and criminals damned to suffer eternal torments in hell. A creeping moss that only Piper can see coats the skin of the people around her, and a woman with fog-filled eyes stalks her, insisting that Chloe is about to die. As if all that isn't enough, two gorgeous guys show up at her school, both claiming to know her, and they both pursue her. And, strangely, they might be the key to this mythical mystery.

The trouble is, Piper can't resist either of them, even though they seem to be sworn enemies. She's falling for brooding, passionate Shayne and for seductive, rebellious Reese. Piper needs to make a decision, and the stakes are high in ways she can't even begin to guess.

Choose the wrong guy, and the uneasy boundary between the mythological world and the human world will disappear, Piper will never learn the truth about herself or her family, and ... all hope for the future will be lost.

SOLSTICE is the first front-list novel to be independently published by an Andrea Brown Literary Agency author. SOLSTICE will be available on Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords in May. More news about the exact release date coming soon!

Happy Birthday to me!

I had every intention of doing a special vlog for my birthday. I even had planned out what I was going to do. But on Sunday, my eyes got all big and red and puffy and sadly they still are. So the vlog will have to wait until I look like I haven't been experimenting with the illegal.

It's not a milestone birthday this year. I one year past over the hill (29 hex). But it's been a great year with tons of good stuff going on.

In lieu of this year's vlog (at least for the short term), I'm going to rerun my vlog from last year.



Hope you all have a wonderful day!

BUT I LOVE HIM by Amanda Grace

Oddly enough, reading this book was a breath of fresh air for me. Why? Because it hooked me from the first word and forced me to stay up late until I was done, and I love when that happens.

BUT I LOVE HIM by Amanda Grace* (Flux, May 8, 2011)


I picked up the book during my daughter's swimming lesson, and couldn't stop reading. Sadly, I had to take a break in there to pretend to make dinner for my family, but once that was out of the way, I went right back to reading. BUT I LOVE HIM deals with physical and emotional abuse in a teen relationship, and the writing engages readers from the first word and refuses to let them stop.

The story is told backwards. We start one year into the relationship, and from there, the narrator moves backwards, only bringing us back to present to remind us of the final outcome. At first, I wasn't sold on this reverse linear structure, but as the story progressed, I came to have a way deeper understanding for why the author did it this way. The key point (I think) she was trying to make is that there may not be one defining moment when abuse begins. It may be easy to stand on the outside and vow to never enter an abusive relationship. But reading this book gives a whole new perspective on the matter, and makes the reader realize it is not that straightforward and easy.

Okay, so there was the fact that I read it in basically one sitting. But even after that, BUT I LOVE HIM is the kind of book that keeps bringing the reader back and making them think through the issues. It's not a graphic or gratuitous book, so no worries for those readers who don't want to read about abuse. It's a book that I put on the same playing field as THIRTEEN REASONS WHY. These are important books to read and share with teens, and these are stories that have to be told.

Highly recommended for girls and boys, readers if all genres, seventh grade and up.

* Amanda Grace is a pseudonym for literary agent Mandy Hubbard.

From Amazon:

Sometimes at night, I wake up and stare at the heart for hours. I think of how I collected each piece from the beach, how I glued it all together into one big sculpture. I wonder if Connor realizes what it means, that he'll always have a piece of me no matter what happens. Each piece of glass is another piece of myself that I gave to him.

It's too bad I didn't keep any pieces for myself.

At the beginning of senior year, Ann was a smiling, straight-A student and track star with friends and a future. Then she met a haunted young man named Connor. Only she can heal his emotional scars; only he could make her feel so loved - and needed. Ann can't recall the pivotal moment it all changed, when she surrendered everything to be with him, but by graduation, her life has become a dangerous high wire act. Just one mistake could trigger Connor's rage, a senseless storm of cruel words and violence damaging everything - and everyone - in its path.

This evocative slideshow of flashbacks reveals a heartbreaking story of love gone terribly wrong.


Source of book: From publisher by request