A Darker Shade of Magic Blog Tour + Giveaway!

As you probably know, hitting shelves TODAY is a book that
many of us have been eagerly anticipating---V.E. Schwab's
A Darker Shade of Magic is out in the world!!! So I am super excited to be today's stop on the blog tour! I've been officially assigned to White London (gasp!! sounds terrifying!) and I'll be featuring a Q & A with Victoria, a video of Victoria exploring London, and lastly an international giveaway for you to win your own copy of this fantastic book!


A little about the book:

Kell is one of the last Travelers—rare magicians who choose a parallel universe to visit.

Grey London is dirty, boring, lacks magic, ruled by mad King George. Red London is where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London is ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne. People fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. Once there was Black London - but no one speaks of that now.

Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell smuggles for those willing to pay for even a glimpse of a world they’ll never see. This dangerous hobby sets him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She robs him, saves him from a dangerous enemy, then forces him to another world for her 'proper adventure'.

But perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, Kell and Lila will first need to stay alive — trickier than they hoped.

For the tour, I got the privilege of asking Victoria a question:

Me: What are your 3 favorite spots in London? 

Victoria: Westminster Abbey, St. James’ park, and the banks of the Thames. Though truthfully, I’m as captivated by the twisting roads and narrow streets that connect all three. There’s one just off the Abbey, beside the Dean’s Yard, with all these little wooden doors set into mossy stone, and another, a few streets away, where it feels like you’ve stepped into another time, if not another world. I’ve always been more a fan of the places they DON’T put on the map.

And here is a fun video of Victoria exploring London & discussing 
A Darker Shade of Magic!

More about the author:

V. E. SCHWAB's first adult novel, Vicious, debuted to critical praise and reader accolades. Schwab is the author of YA novels The Near Witch, The Archived, and The Unbound, and the Everyday Angel series for middle grade readers.

BLOG  •  TWITTER  •  FACEBOOK  •  GOODREADS  •   TUMBLR

Want ADSOM?  Get it here:

Print - IndieBound, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, Powell’s, Walmart.

E-Book - Kindle, Nook, iBooks, eBooks, Google Play, Kobo

And last but not least, the fabulous folks at Tor are letting me give one finished copy away to anyone in the world!! Whoooop!

•Open internationally

•Ends  March 9, 2015

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Unwept by Tracy & Laura Hickman {review}

Unwept
by Tracy & Laura Hickman
♦publisher: Tor
♦release date: July 1st, 2014
♦hardcover, 272 pages
♦intended audience: Adult
♦series: The Nightbirds, book 1
♦source: from publisher for honest review

Gamin, Maine, is a remote seaside town where everyone seems to know Ellis Harkington better than she knows herself—but she doesn’t remember any of them.

Unknown events have robbed Ellis of her memory. Concerned individuals, who purport to be her friends and loved ones, insist that she simply needs to recuperate, that her memories may return in time, but refuse to divulge what has brought her to this state. For her own sake, so they say.

Ellis finds herself adrift in a town of ominous mysteries, cryptic hints, and disturbingly familiar strangers. The Nightbirds, a clique of fashionable young men and women, claim her as one of their own, but who among them can she truly trust? And what of the phantom suitor who visits her in her dreams? Is he a memory, a figment of her imagination, or a living nightmare beyond rational explanation?

Only her lost past hold the answers she seeks—if she can uncover its secrets before she fall prey to an unearthly killer.

Review: Unwept, for me, was an odd one. I found myself quickly and completely drawn in to the dark mystery of how Ellis lost her memory, the creepy town where everyone is just a little shady, the eerie atmosphere, and finally the touch of fantasy as her nightmares start seeping into her real life. But somewhere along the way, it lost me. And as the ending crept closer, even knowing that this was a planned series and that a conclusion would not be reached (thank you for the warning, Rachel!) I still felt unsatisfied and that the idea behind the story was a bit confusing and muddy. 

As each characters introduced themselves, I was immediately curious about how they fit into Ellis's story. However, I found as the story went along, the extent of each one's cryptic behavior made it really hard to feel invested in any of them. Jenny, Ellis's cousin, was especially annoying to me, constantly childish and pouty. We're sort of left in the dark about what is really going on for a bit too long, which would have been okay if we had interesting players to cling to, but without that connection, I just found it slowed the pacing. Still, several of them take a slow-building turn toward the sinister, which turns the whole thing very dark and macabre. As Ellis starts to have strange nightmares and visions,  and everyone seems to be telling her a different story, her confusion and distrust and certainty that everything is just competely wrong in Gamin becomes palpable. 

Just the sheer need to find out what this crazy town was all about, to be let in on the big dark secret, kept me reading this one until the end. I can't say whether I will give book 2 a chance to clear up some things that I was left confused about (for instance: chapter 1???) or to find out what will happen next to Ellis, Merrick, and the bizarre moth-man. But Unwept was a interesting, eerie reading experience---just one that didn't completely work for me.

Find Tracy & Laura  Hickman online:  Website  •  Twitter 

Purchase Unwept:  BN.com  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound