Thursday, February 6, 2014

Blog Tour: The Glass Casket Review + Giveaway


Today I'm happy to be participating in the blog tour for  
The Glass Casket!

Death hasn't visited Rowan Rose since it took her mother when Rowan was only a little girl. But that changes one bleak morning, when five horses and their riders thunder into her village and through the forest, disappearing into the hills. Days later, the riders' bodies are found, and though no one can say for certain what happened in their final hours, their remains prove that whatever it was must have been brutal.

Rowan's village was once a tranquil place, but now things have changed. Something has followed the path those riders made and has come down from the hills, through the forest, and into the village. Beast or man, it has brought death to Rowan's door once again.

Only this time, its appetite is insatiable.
♦Publisher: Delacorte Press
♦Release date: February 11th, 2014
♦Hardcover, 352 pages
♦Intended audience: Young adult
♦Stand-alone

Review: With a haunting atmosphere, gorgeous prose, and unforgettable conflicted characters, The Glass Casket will charm and terrify any lover of fairy tales, old or new.  I initially went in expecting a retelling of Snow White, but found a story that is wholly its own unique creation:  a dark village in the mountains, a people with varied beliefs and ways, murderous creatures looming in the forest unlike anything I could have imagined. 

The story constantly keeps you guessing, with the finger of suspicion pointing at many different characters as the story gracefully unfolds.  There is a subtle love story, a few of them actually, but nothing that bogs down the main storyline.  The story is told in third person persective, perfect for a village full of interesting characters, but Rowen stands out as our main heroine.  She is clever and fearless, but will have to fight with her own heart when her best friend Tom wants an introduction to her pretty and mysterious cousin, Fiona.  Tom’s brother, Jude, seems to always know how to rile her, but they’ll have to find a way to come together to help Tom when he starts disappearing into the woods each night and more and more of the villagers start turning up dead.
 
There is madness, elemental witches, long-buried secrets, and the walking dead.  The Glass Casket sparkles with magic and wonder while still delivering a gut-churning dose of horror and gore.   With all manner of vivid imagery, from mountains and thick forest, the silvery lake full of mythical flesh-eating nixies, the shadows lurking in the washroom, and the body lying with its throat torn out---the author's carefully chosen words play it all out on the page in a way that pulls the reader in and holds them captive in this eerie, dangerous world.  

Find McCormick Templeman online:  Website  •  Twitter

Purchase The Glass Casket:  Amazon  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

or WIN A COPY!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
 Be sure to catch the rest of the tour stops! 
The Glass Casket Blog Tour

January 31st Bookish

February 1st Katie’s Book Blog

February 3rd I’d so Rather be Reading

February 4th Forever YA

February 5th Wastepaper Prose

February 6th Stories & Sweeties

February 7th Peace Love Books

February 8th The Hiding Spot

February 10th Children’s Book Review

February 11th The Midnight Garden  

February 13th Dear Teen Me

February 17th The Midnight Garden

16 comments :

  1. I'm pretty easy to scare, so pretty much anything. But I love the tension and suspense of things much more than the in your face gore kind of things

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  2. This book sounds amazing! I picked it as my WoW awhile ago. I'm glad to hear that it's as good as I was hoping it would be! I like gore and scary and all that jazz, so I'm glad that it has plenty of that! Thanks for the review and the giveaway!

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  3. Eerie atmosphere and creepy insane characters.
    But I love to read such books,the atmosphere,the tension,you do not know what and how it will be.

    Wonderful review and post!
    Thanks for the giveaway :)

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  4. Eerie atmosphere! Those get to me the most because it's quite easy to relate to.

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  5. The unknown. I usually read books w/o knowing much about them because I don't want the plot to be spoiled by anything.

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  6. This books sounds crazy good. I can't wait for it.
    Usually it's not necessarily anything specific in the book that scares me, but my own surroundings. Reading any kind of scary book amplifies the creaks and groans of the house, the little noises that you wouldn't necessarily take notice of... scary books bring them to life.

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  7. I think what scares me the most in stories are the things that are plausible. Something that could easily happen in real life if just one thing went wrong. That makes it more real and more immediate for me.

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  8. Truly, nothing really scares me while reading :) Don't know why, I've always been able to read creepy and scary. But I can't watch it in movies! LOL...

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  9. What scares me most in stories are both creepy characters and creepy atmospheres. Especially when its so detailed that it makes me feel like I'm there. Awesome detail but also creepy circumstances :)

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  10. Definitely the atmosphere. Set the right creepy tone and I'll be hooked. I absolutely love them!!

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  11. I think things in books creep me out more than outright scare me. For example, the main character in I Hunt Killers. I want to think he's a good guy and not a complete nutbag sociopath, but some of the stuff he does just creeps me out.

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  12. I love scary stories and can read most anything, or so I say, until I get to that moment when I read the killer is calling from INSIDE the intended victim's home. That always freaks me out. I can far too easily envision this; probably from my background in sociology, specializing in deviance (serial killers). EEEK!

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  13. You liked this one better than I did, which I'm happy about! I loved the writing, but the characters...!! They drove me bonkers!

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  14. Just the suspense of not knowing what's going to happen.

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  15. What scares me most in any story is realism. When something happens that could conceivably happen "in real life," like when the main character thinks she's going crazy or there are strange noises at night, THEN I get spooked!

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  16. Definitely atmosphere, and suspense. Characters themselves rarely frighten me. (I am so pumped for this book, by the way, I just got done reading another of the author's books which I really enjoyed and am super pleased that I don't have to wait for another)

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