Mundie Moms

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Author Chat w/ UNBREAKABLE author Elizabeth Norris TONIGHT



Tonight I'm thrilled to be hosting a Twitter chat with Unraveling & UNBREAKABLE author Elizabeth Norris. Come join the fun starting at 8 pm EST / 7 pm CST by following #BeUnbreakable
I look forward to seeing you guys there!

Shadowhunter Tarot Cards #8

Today's Shadowhunter Tarot Card is card #8 and the Lovers Card. Cassie explains why they decided to do a flippable card, which I totally LOVE!



So Cassandra Jean has finished the complete Shadowhunter Tarot, so for the next … seventy-something days I’ll be posting a card a day in order, from the first card to the last. Some will be under spoiler cuts; some you’ll have seen before — I’ll explain why each character has the card they have. 
The Lovers card! Its meaning is pretty self-explanatory. I thought I’d attach the first version we did, which was just Jace and Clary. For whatever reason it wasn’t working for us. Maybe because Jace looks slightly evil? :) Also I felt like there are so many characters whose relationships could represent unity and love. So we decided to make it a flippable card, which worked either way up, and have Magnus and Alec represent love as well.

Blog Tour; Book Review / Giveaway: ICONS by Margaret Stohl


I'm thrilled to be today's stop on the ICONS blog tour I'm hosting over on Mundie Moms blog tours. I've been a huge fan of Margaret's for awhile now, and I am SO EXCITED she has a new book out! This book is fabulous. 



By: Margaret Stohl
Published by: Little Brown
To Be Released on: May 7th
Pre-Order from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble 
Add it to Goodreads

Your heart beats only with their permission. 

Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting. 

Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside -- safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid. 

She's different. She survived. Why? 
When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. It's a conspiracy


ICONS has this original feel to it that hooked me from page one. I LOVED this book! It's one of those reads you pick up expecting one thing, and end up with something a little bit different, and oh so addicting. The best way to describe this book is to say it's an exciting, action packed dystopian / science fiction read loaded with twists and turns that will leave you wanting more when you finish it. Having a storyline fueled by action, some sizzling character chemistry, intrigue, betrayal, love, and having me try to figure out what exactly is going on, was perfect! Now add that with some really creditable, layered characters who I got to know just enough of to understand their motives with ICONS, while leaving me wanting to know more about them that I didn't want this story to finish, and you have yourselves a 5 star book!

What really captured my interest and hooked me with this exciting read was they was it was written. Margaret gave me just enough of her story to keep me turning paging, revealed small doses of what was going on to keep me engaged, and left me with a few unanswered questions that make wish the sequel was already in my hands. Despite this book's size, I read it one sitting. Once I started it, there was no stopping. Though I'm a fan of Margaret's writing from the Beautiful Creatures she co-wrote, I have to say that ICONS is her best writing yet! There is something in the way ICONS is written that made me as a reader feel as though Margaret found her niche. ICONS is not like an other book I've read. I can't even begin to compare to another. Having read a ton of YA books, I have to say that in itself seems like an impossible task to accomplish.

Though this book is about Dol, her three fellow characters all share her spot light, and their dangerous adventure into finding out more about who they really are, and what exactly their powers can do is an exciting, thrilling journey in itself. This story isn't just told from Dol's point of view. To add to all that's going on with the rebellion, and the mystery behind what's really happening, Margaret has inserted articles and letters between various chapters that only adds to the danger of what these four teens are up against, from those on the "other side". Yes, that just adds more fuel to the conspiracy that's going on here on Earth after the aliens invaded and well, there seems to be a lot more going on than what gets uncovered here in ICONS. I can not wait for the rest of this series to be released.

If you're looking for  an action packed book that has some fabulous character chemistry, a rebellion, characters who pull you right into their story & leave you wanting more from them long after you finish it, then I'd recommend picking this book up! Another fabulous thing about this book, is it's one I'd recommend to higher level 11 & 12 yr readers. It's a clean cut read, and one teachers could easily discuss a variety of themes from the book with their students. I LOVED IT! I'd totally recommend this book to anyone and everyone.

About The Author:



Margaret Stohl is the New York Times, PW, USA Today, LA Times and Internationally bestselling co-author of the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES NOVELS (Fall 2009-2012) and author of THE ICONS SERIES (Spring, 2013.) You can read a more in-depth biography on Margaret here

Follow Margaret on: her Website | BlogTumblr | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

The Giveaway:
Thank you to Little Brown, I have 2 copies of ICONS to giveaway today! To enter, please fill out the form below.

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*All entering parties are responsible for reading the giveaway rules/guidelines before entering.

Cassie Answers TID Movie Questions


Dust and Shadows by kara-lija
The "City of Bones" movie hasn't been released yet and it seems that we're already abuzz about "The Infernal Devices" movie. Cassie answered a few questions and concerns on her tumblr yesterday:

Hello Cassie, there has been a lot of drama in the fandom concerning the TID movie. While I do agree that TMI is more action than romance, therefore making it more appealing to the audience, TID major points are the power of words… What made you accept a potential movie? Do you think a 2 hour movie will do you characters justice? — dumbledors

Hi cassie! (Can I call you that?) So I heard TID already has a screenwriter and is currently looking for a director. I do hope they don’t mess up the Will-Tessa-Jem dynamics. The series is not all about the love triangle. I also fervently hope they wouldn’t mess up the cast and that they would be able to portray Tessa as the strong, courageous new girl that she really is. She’s my absolute favorite female character, along with Hermione Granger. That’s all, I’m watching out for your next books! I love you! — iamflameandiamfire

Has there been drama? I missed it. Ah well. One thing to keep in mind is that no movie is being made until they are rolling cameras so it’s early to freak out. Wait till someone actually gets cast at least. :)

What made me accept a potential movie? I guess: I like movies. I don’t think film is a lesser art than books. Just a different art. I don’t think book adaptations to film are doomed to be bad. I think a lot of them are good. I think "Lord of the Rings" was good. I think "Psycho" and "Jaws" and "The Shining" and "Apocalypse Now" and "Atonement" and "A Clockwork Orange" and "LA Confidential" and a million more I could name are good movies.

I think people say movies ruin books a lot for two reasons: Lots of adaptations of books are bad. It’s not easy to adapt a book. It’s not easy to translate what happens on a page to a visual medium. And things that are hard to do are often done badly. And secondly, a lot of times people simply rate a film by how much it diverges from the book. But all movies are going to diverge from the books they’re based on. They have to. The question is whether they diverge in intelligent ways (As, I think, "Lord of the Rings" did in casting Elijah Wood as Frodo. Frodo is supposed to be fifty. Elijah Wood was nineteen. But as a visual symbol of corrupted innocence, a 19-year-old worked much better. In the books, the hobbits have a youthful spirit. On screen you have to cast people who actually look youthful or what you will end up with is what looks like a bunch of middle aged people cavorting disturbingly) or in ways that worsened the story. And the only way to know that is to watch the whole film.

Waiting on Wednesday / A Giveaway: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey


By: Rick Yancey
Published by: Putnam / Penguin Teen
To Be Released on: May 7th, 2013
Series: The Fifth Wave #1
Pre-Order from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Add it to Goodreads

The Passage meets Ender’s Game in an epic new series from award-winning author Rick Yancey.

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

There has been so much hype surrounding this book! It's one that everyone I know who's read it, hasn't stopped talking about it. I received an arc for it yesterday in the mail, and I'm anxious to sit down and start reading it. Luckily we don't have to wait too much longer for it to be released. 

The Giveaway:
THANK YOU to Penguin, one of you lucky blog followers is also going to receive an ARC of The 5th Wave! To Enter, please fill out the form below. Please note that all giveaway entering parties are responsible for reading the giveaway rules prior to entering. This is open to US residents only. Penguin Teen will be sending out the arc to the winner after the winner is announced on May 1st. Good luck! :)

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