The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough {review + giveaway}

The Game of Love and Death
by Martha Brockenbrough
♦publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
♦release date: April 28th, 2015
♦hardcover, 329 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦stand-alone
♦source: trade show/conference

Antony and Cleopatra. Helen of Troy and Paris. Romeo and Juliet. And now . . . Henry and Flora.

For centuries Love and Death have chosen their players. They have set the rules, rolled the dice, and kept close, ready to influence, angling for supremacy. And Death has always won. Always.

Could there ever be one time, one place, one pair whose love would truly tip the balance?

Meet Flora Saudade, an African-American girl who dreams of becoming the next Amelia Earhart by day and sings in the smoky jazz clubs of Seattle by night. Meet Henry Bishop, born a few blocks and a million worlds away, a white boy with his future assured — a wealthy adoptive family in the midst of the Great Depression, a college scholarship, and all the opportunities in the world seemingly available to him.

The players have been chosen. The dice have been rolled. But when human beings make moves of their own, what happens next is anyone’s guess.

Achingly romantic and brilliantly imagined, The Game of Love and Death is a love story you will never forget.

Review: What captures you first in The Game of Love and Death is the atmosphere. We see two figures on a dark stormy night, putting their mark on the lives of two small infants—the players of a game that will span their lifetimes. The two figures are Love and Death, and this is a game they’ve played again and again through eternity. Death is confident, cocky even, but Love is ever hopeful that this time he will be the victor. It quite a story setup, and could happen in any timeframe, but there is something about Brockenbrough’s beautiful unique writing that just breathes life into this era. It’s not just the mention of obvious historical moments from the late 30s that places the story there, or even the clothes or the music or the poverty (though all of these details are intricately woven in).  The way it’s written just makes you feel the world surrounding these characters--- the laid back pressure-release of listening to an alluring song in a nightclub, the intensity of an attraction forbidden by the racial issues of that time, the desperation of grasping at a dream that seems completely impossible because of your color or situation. 

Each character is so well thought out and interesting.  Love is patient and hopeful and all-encompassing, but also loves his player and desperate to see him win.  Death, though she seems wholly sinister, starts to let slip other sides of herself and you realize there is something of both beauty and horror of the way she takes souls.  And through the span of the game, you start to see the complexity of their relationship.   I loved that their players mirror a bit of themselves, but also the world they each live in—Henry with his insistence to see connection in everything, an unfailing kindness and a rather naïve hopefulness about him.  Flora desperation to escape into the sky and her no-nonsense look at the world make her strong but weak at the same time, as she fights to keep control of her life and her emotions. 

The fluid way this story unfolds is as bewitching and sultry as what I imagine Flora’s night club performances would have been. It encompassed issues of race, privilege, sacrifice, and love in all its complicated forms.  I was so wrapped up in these characters that I didn’t want it to end, but when it did, it took my breath away. I don’t cry often at books, but with this touching and beautiful end, there was no escaping it.  

Read this book.

Find Martha Brockenbrough online:  Website  •  Twitter  •  Tumblr

Purchase the book:  Indiebound  •  BookDepository  •  Amazon

*GIVEAWAY!*
This is definitely one that I'll be buying myself a lovely finished copy of..so I'm passing along my signed (not personalized) ARC! 
•US mailing address only (sorry!)
•Must be 13 or older
•Ends 7/24/15

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Becky's View: Sorrow's Knot by Erin Bow

Sorrow's Knot by Erin Bow
♦publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
♦release date: October 29th, 2013
♦hardcover, 368 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦stand-alone
♦source: from publisher via San Francisco Book Review

In the world of SORROW'S KNOT, the dead do not rest easy. Every patch of shadow might be home to something hungry, something deadly. Most of the people of this world live on the sunlit, treeless prairies. But a few carve out an uneasy living in the forest towns, keeping the dead at bay with wards made from magically knotted cords. The women who tie these knots are called binders. And Otter's mother, Willow, is one of the greatest binders her people have ever known.

But Willow does not wish for her daughter to lead the lonely, heavy life of a binder, so she chooses another as her apprentice. Otter is devastated by this choice, and what's more, it leaves her untrained when the village falls under attack. In a moment of desperation, Otter casts her first ward, and the results are disastrous. But now Otter may be her people's only hope against the shadows that threaten them. Will the challenge be too great for her? Or will she find a way to put the dead to rest once and for all?

Review: Sorrow's Knot is my first experience with Erin Bow's work---I somehow missed out on Plain Kate as much as I wanted to read it.  I know I definitely heard great things about it.  After reading Sorrow's Knot, I will definitely go back and try Plain Kate soon, if only to read more of this author's lovely writing. 

In Sorrow's Knot, the world building was subtle but beautiful.  The female-dominated village of Westmost has a very native tribal atmosphere.  They live simply, each woman grows up and is chosen for a specific trade. They have rangers and healers and storytellers---but Otter is a born Binder.  In this land, the dead are part of their daily lives and something they must always look out for.  Different kinds of ghosts pose different kinds of threats to them.  The binders use a magic of tying knots and a complicated "cat's cradle" kind of thing to ward off these spirits. They also use it to bind their dead.  Through Otter's journey to find her place in the village and through the many legends told by the storyteller, Cricket, a really beautiful story unfolds that basically comes down to the human condition of binding our loves ones to us with our grief and sorrow---and the freedom of letting them go. 

I really enjoyed the three main characters, Otter, Cricket, and Kestrel.  Cricket is the only boy in the village and I kept expecting the dynamic between them to shift into something more complicated and predictable, but it thankfully never did.  There was a kind of sweetness and purity to the three of them being so close. The relationship between Otter and her strange mother, Willow, was definitely heavier! Willow often seems on the verge of insanity and it's hard to know if she is threatened by Otter or trying to protect her or just plain crazy---or a little of each.  

The pacing at times seemed a little slow, and other times seemed to fit the solemn journey that Otter faced.  It felt more like a chronicle of Otter discovering the truth about her people and what they've all grown to believe than some action-packed plot with an obvious beginning, middle, end.  For now, I think this is a stand-alone, but with the way it ended I definitely would be interested in what Otter discovers next beyond the village of Westmost!

Find Erin Bow online: Website  • Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Sorrow's Knot: Amazon  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

Amy's View: Amber House

Amber House by Kelly Moore, Tucker Reed, and Larkin Reed
♦publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books
♦release date: October 1st, 2012
♦hardcover, 368 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦source: ALA

"I was sixteen the first time my grandmother died . . ."

Sarah Parsons has never seen Amber House, the grand Maryland estate that's been in her family for three centuries. She's never walked its hedge maze nor found its secret chambers; she's never glimpsed the shades that haunt it, nor hunted for lost diamonds in its walls.

But all of that is about to change. After her grandmother passes away, Sarah and her friend Jackson decide to search for the diamonds--and the house comes alive. She discovers that she can see visions of the house's past, like the eighteenth-century sea captain who hid the jewels, or the glamorous great-grandmother driven mad by grief. She grows closer to both Jackson and a young man named Richard Hathaway, whose family histories are each deeply entwined with her own. But when the visions start to threaten the person she holds most dear, Sarah must do everything she can to get to the bottom of the house's secrets, and stop the course of history before it is cemented forever.

Review: Mind blowing! Captivating! This book leaves you breathless with vacant space in your chest needed to be filled.  Everything an amazing story should have. An amazing story, richly thought out.  A beautiful house filled with rich history and southern charm, ancient family secrets, ghosts of the past, blossoming love, and an enchanting masquerade ball.  I was pleasantly delighted with Amber House and all of its many marvelous mysteries waiting to be discovered just behind the threshold. 
 
Sarah Parsons is thrust into a new and delicate world in her family’s grand Maryland estate that dates back three centuries. And with it comes three centuries of ghosts and mysteries that are waiting to be discovered and solved. Sarah is caught between her old life in Seattle where she find herself ready to go running back to the comfort of the familiar and that of the new intriguing life that awaits for her at Amber house.  Not only does Sarah have to deal with an ancient house and all of its mysteries but she has her icy mother who doesn’t want to deal with the death of her grandmother or the newly inherited house. She just wants to sell the house, forget her childhood and all its pain and go back to the west coast. But Sarah isn’t so sure. The temptation of a treasure hunt for lost diamonds and the allure of the attention from two boys are enough to make her want to stay and see what Amber House has to offer. But what the house has in store for Sarah is more than she is ready for. 

Sarah learns of a new and powerful gift that is passed down to every generation of Amber house woman.  Just when Sarah is ready to leave it all behind, handsome wealthy Richard, his father, and his sailboat launch into Sarah life leaving her struggling between her feelings for him and for Jackson, the boy who lives on the grounds. And not only has Richard left Sarah questioning, but his father has charmed Sarah’s mother just enough to make her want to stay and throw the most elaborate sweet 16 masquerade ball for Sarah at Amber house to woo potential buyers into its magical web. Now Sarah truly is trapped, leaving it up to her to weave through the maze of the house mysteries, watch her little brother and prepare for the daunting and horrible ball. Not one part if this story is predictable or leaves you for a moment to catch your breath. Just when you think Sarah will figure it all out one more twist spins you to a dead end and sends you doubling back through the maze of secrets.
 
Amber House is magnificent and rich in storytelling with a new concept that blew me away. I am left eagerly waiting for the next book in this trilogy.  
 
Yep, you guessed it: 5 wonderfully lavish cupcakes.  Sparkling champagne and Vanilla bean cupcakes, heaping mountains of golden rich buttercream frosting dusted in gold glitter dust. Yummy. 

Visit the gorgeous Amber House Trilogy website!

Or find the authors online: Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase Amber House:  Amazon  •  BN.com  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound