These Rebel Waves Blog Tour: Guest Post with Sara Raasch

About the Book:

Title: These Rebel Waves
Series: Stream Riders #1
Author: Sara Raasch
Amazon / Goodreads

Synopsis:Adeluna is a soldier. Five years ago, she helped the magic-rich island of Grace Loray overthrow its oppressor, Argrid, a country ruled by religion. But adjusting to postwar life has not been easy. When an Argridian delegate vanishes during peace talks with Grace Loray’s new Council, Argrid demands brutal justice—but Lu suspects something more dangerous is at work.

Devereux is a pirate. As one of the outlaws called stream raiders who run rampant on Grace Loray, he pirates the island’s magic plants and sells them on the black market. But after Argrid accuses raiders of the diplomat’s abduction, Vex becomes a target. An expert navigator, he agrees to help Lu find the Argridian—but the truth they uncover could be deadlier than any war.

Benat is a heretic. The crown prince of Argrid, he harbors a secret obsession with Grace Loray’s forbidden magic. When Ben’s father, the king, gives him the shocking task of reversing Argrid’s fear of magic, Ben has to decide if one prince can change a devout country—or if he’s building his own pyre.

As conspiracies arise, Lu, Vex, and Ben will have to decide who they really are . . . and what they are willing to become for peace.

Guest Post:

I asked Sara how real life pirates inspired These Rebel Waves. Here are her answers.

One book in particular ignited the pirate-inspired raiders that wreak havoc in THESE REBEL WAVES: Colin Woodard’s THE REPUBLIC OF PIRATES. It details the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean and the various players that made it such a sordid time—namely, one deliciously enticing pirate named Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy.

His career as a pirate captain lasted less than a year (and he died at the age of 28), but in that time, he captured/raided more than 50 ships. He was way nicer than most of his fellows and deigned to show *gasp* mercy to the crews of ships he captured. His own crew loved him; he earned a reputation for being the Robin Hood of the Sea. There’s way more to his life and death, of course, but reading about Black Sam stuck him firmly in my brain. What sort of person must he have been, to be successful and merciful in an industry that required ruthlessness?

Black Sam stayed in the back of my head as I worked out the characters in THESE REBEL WAVES, particularly with my pirate POV character, Devereux “Vex” Bell. His name is even a homage to Black Sam Bellamy, a tribute to the real life pirate who was such an appetizingly enticing figure.

About the Author

Sara Raasch has known she was destined for bookish things since the age of five, when her friends had a lemonade stand and she tagged along to sell her hand-drawn picture books too. Not much has changed since then — her friends still cock concerned eyebrows when she attempts to draw things and her enthusiasm for the written word still drives her to extreme measures. Her NYTimes bestselling SNOW LIKE ASHES trilogy is available now and her upcoming pirate fantasy, THESE REBEL WAVES, releases August 7, 2018. None of those feature her hand-drawn pictures.

Buy the SNOW LIKE ASHES trilogy now and preorder THESE REBEL WAVES! http://sararaasch.tumblr.com/books

Website: http://sararaasch.tumblr.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/seesarawrite
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Snow-Like-Ashes/463392000376989
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/seesarawrite/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6947727.Sara_Raasch
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/sararaasch

Alright everyone, I hope you enjoyed that little peak into some of the inspiration for These Rebel Waves. Definitely check out the book. I've been reading it all week and I'm really enjoying it. Come back on Monday for more of my thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!

In Her Skin Blog Tour: Author Guest Post and Giveaway

ABOUT THE BOOK

In Her Skin by Kim Savage
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Release Date: April 17, 2018
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery

Synopsis: A dark, suspenseful young adult novel about crime, identity, and two girls with ever y- thing to lose.

Fifteen-year-old con artist Jo Chastain takes on her biggest heist yet — impersonating a missing girl. Life on the streets of Boston these past few years hasn’t been easy, and s he hopes to cash in on a little safety, some security. She finds her opportunity with the Lovecrafts, a wealthy family tied to the unsolved disappearance of Vivienne Weir, who vanished when she was nine.

When Jo takes on Vivi ’ s identity and stages the girl ’ s miraculous return, the Love-crafts welcome her with open arms. They give her everything she could want: love, money, and proximity to their intoxicating and unpredictable daughter, Temple. But nothing is as it seems in the Lovecraft household — and some secrets refuse to stay buried. When hidden crimes come to the surface and lines of deception begin to blur, Jo must choose to either hold on to an illusion of safety or escape the danger around her before it ’ s too late. In Her Skin is Kim Savage at her most suspenseful yet.

GUEST POST / MINI INTERVIEW

I asked the author Kim Savage to talk more about her writing process for a mystery/heist novel. Here are her answers to my questions/

What are the steps to writing a heist novel?

1. Create a character who is savvy but vulnerable. The reader needs to care!
2. Give her skills that can only get her so far.
3. Give her a formidable opponent to create conflict. Dear reader, meet Temple Lovecraft.

How do you start?

With In Her Skin, I started with the motivation of the Lovecrafts. How could they be fooled by an obvious con? Jo’s eyes are a different color than Vivi’s, she doesn’t recall the same memories, and her kidnapping story has holes. I realized the question wasn’t how they could be fooled, but why would they choose to be.

Do you have to plot it out or can you pants it?

I write chapters with bullets, then lay down the bones of a story in a messy first draft. You really can't pants suspense, or you'd end up with logic problems. At least I can’t!

I hope that has interested you in reading the book. Having finished it myself I can definitely say she achieved that goal in writing a book about why someone would want to be tricked. If you want more info on my thoughts on the book, come back tomorrow for my full review.

BOOK LINKS

Goodreads /  Amazon / Barnes and Noble / Book Depository / Kobo / IndieBound / iBooks

TOUR SCHEDULE

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KIM SAVAGE is the author of three critically acclaimed young adult novels, After the Woods, Beautiful Broken Girls (named by Kirkus as one of the 10 Best YA of 2017), and In Her Skin (releasing March 27, 2018), all with Farrar, Straus, Giroux/Macmillan. He r novels have been published in Spain, Brazil, and Turkey, and have been optioned for TV. Kim presents at conferences and book festivals natio n- wide; has been featured on NPR, Herald Radio, and on local cable stations; and she reads from her novels at bookstores across the country. A former reporter with a Master degree in Journalism from Northeastern University, Kim's stories are based in and around Boston. She lives with her family near Boston, not far from the real Middlesex Fells Reservation of After the Woods. Kim and her husband have three children, each of whom beg to appear in her books. They shouldn't.

GIVEAWAY

Prize :1 finished copy of IN HER SKIN by Kim Savage (US Only)

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Speak Easy, Speak Love Blog Tour: Guest Post and Giveaway

Hi Everyone,

I'm so excited to be a part of the blog tour for Speak Easy, Speak Love. I've wanted to read this book ever since I first learned about it. Not only is it historical fiction set in the 1920's but it involves bootleggers, speak easies, and all kinds of fun stuff from the era. But on top of that it's a Much Ado About Nothing retelling which involves a hate to love relationship and plenty of laughs. I love Shakespeare retellings and I'm excited for this one. 

So... because of my enjoyment of Shakespear retellings, I had to ask the author about Shakespeare. So scroll down for McKelle George's response when I asked about Shakespeare's comedies but first a little bit about the book.

Speak Easy, Speak Love

by McKelle George
Publisher: Greenwillow Books/ HarperCollins
Release Date: September 19, 2017

Genre: Young Adult, Retellings, Historical

Synopsis:

Six teenagers’ lives intertwine during one thrilling summer full of romantic misunderstandings and dangerous deals in this sparkling retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

After she gets kicked out of boarding school, seventeen-year-old Beatrice goes to her uncle’s estate on Long Island. But Hey Nonny Nonny is more than just a rundown old mansion. Beatrice’s cousin, Hero, runs a struggling speakeasy out of the basement—one that might not survive the summer.

Along with Prince, a poor young man determined to prove his worth; his brother, John, a dark and dangerous agent of the local mob; Benedick, a handsome trust-fund kid trying to become a writer; and Maggie, a beautiful and talented singer; Beatrice and Hero throw all their efforts into planning a massive party to save the speakeasy. Despite all their worries, the summer is beautiful, love is in the air, and Beatrice and Benedick are caught up in a romantic battle of wits that their friends might be quietly orchestrating in the background.

Hilariously clever and utterly charming, McKelle George’s debut novel is full of intrigue and 1920s charm. For fans of Jenny Han, Stephanie Perkins, and Anna Godbersen.

GUEST POST

I asked McKelle to tell us a little bit about the Shakespearean comedies because we tend to just learn about the tragedies and some of my favorite Shakespeare is the comedies. Here's what she said:

Okay, I’m going to try and keep this short and not turn this into a massive academic essay, but I actually have a lot to say about this. In high school, I hated Shakespeare: mostly because I couldn’t understand it. We studied Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello (all tragedies). It wasn’t until a, I was introduced to comedies, and b, I saw Shakespeare performed the way it’s meant to be, that I started to truly it.


Students tend to study the tragedies more because, as scholars and critics judge, the Bard’s most complex and beautiful writing appears in the tragedies. Likewise, people tend to adapt the tragedies more and retell them because there seems, at first glance, to be more substance: more emotional depth and realism to play around with.

But hear me out:

The tragedies are beautiful and complex and great, sure, but I believe some of Shakespeare’s most political writing is found in his comedies. In fact, several of the so-called comedies are billed as problem plays because while initially billed as such, there’s a lot of dark, psychological drama sprinkled into the laugh-out-loud funny.

Consider The Merchant of Venice and Taming of the Shrew. The first has an antisemitic premise (casting the Jewish Shylock as the villain), and the second is sexist (setting up Kate to be ultimately “tamed”),and yet, it is to Shylock that Shakespeare gives the humanizing and beautiful speech that contains the famous line, “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” At the end of Shrew, when a beaten Kate addresses the women of the audience and says, “Come, come, you froward and unable worms,” it is chilling.

Both of these monologues are chilling and uncomfortable. It’s hard to know what Shakespeare intended because he famously gave very few stage direction, but it’s also hard not to think carefully and critically about what’s being said between the lines.

Shakespeare was no dummy. He was popular as his plays were being performed—often in front of nobility and the Queen—and anything too radical might have gotten him executed. Likewise, preaching didn’t do much good either. I like to think Shakespeare was entertaining people into change, weaving empathy and forward thought into the plays with jokes and marriage—not death and gore.

Much Ado About Nothing gets one of Shakespeare’s finest feminist characters in Beatrice. Beatrice is independent and smart, and even though she doesn’t want a husband,it’s for the sake of her own independence, not because she hates men (of whom she is gently teasing in the beginning of the play). Unlike Kate, Beatrice isn’t made to change who she is to be with Benedick, and unlike characters like Rosalind, she also doesn’t ditch her female friendships once a man comes along.

This is one of my favorite Beatrice’s moments:

BENEDICK

With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee.

BEATRICE

Why then, God forgive me!

BENEDICK

What offence, sweet Beatrice?

BEATRICE

You have stayed me in a happy hour. I was about to protest I loved you.

BENEDICK

And do it with all thy heart. BEATRICE I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

BENEDICK

Come, bid me do anything for thee.

BEATRICE Kill Claudio. (4.1.293-303)

She’s like, I love you! Kill your best friend. Like, yeah fine I admit it, but that doesn’t change the situation, pal.

To me, the 1920s was a uniquely feminist decade and that was why I set Speak Easy, Speak Love in that setting . . . and then tried to make people laugh. Hopefully I succeeded.

McKelle George is a reader, writer of clumsy rebels, perpetual doodler, and associate librarian at the best library in the world. She mentors with Salt Lake Teen Writes and plays judge for the Poetry Out Loud teen competitions (but has no poetic talent herself). Her debut young adult novel Speak Easy, Speak Love comes out from Greenwillow/HarperCollins in 2017, and she currently lives in Salt Lake City with an enormous white german shepherd and way, way too many books.

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Giveaway:

• 1 ARC of SPEAK EASY, SPEAK LOVE by McKelle George
• Pre-order swag including:
• 1 SPEAK EASY, SPEAK LOVE bookmark
• 1 signed SPEAK EASY, SPEAK LOVE bookplate
• 1 signed SPEAK EASY, SPEAK LOVE postcard
• The full set of SPEAK EASY, SPEAK LOVE character cards •

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League of American Traitors Blog Tour: Guest Post with Author Matthew Landis

ABOUT THE BOOK:

League of American Traitors

by Matthew Landis

Publisher: Sky Pony

Release Date: August 8, 2017

Genre: Young Adult, Historical

Links:

Goodreads - Amazon - B&N - Book Depository 

Synopsis:

Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it. . . . 

 When seventeen year-old Jasper is approached at the funeral of his deadbeat father by a man claiming to be an associate of his deceased parents, he’s thrust into a world of secrets tied to America’s history—and he’s right at the heart of it.

First, Jasper finds out he is the sole surviving descendant of Benedict Arnold, the most notorious traitor in American history. Then he learns that his father’s death was no accident. Jasper is at the center of a war that has been going on for centuries, in which the descendants of the heroes and traitors of the American Revolution still duel to the death for the sake of their honor.

His only hope to escape his dangerous fate on his eighteenth birthday? Take up the research his father was pursuing at the time of his death, to clear Arnold’s name.

Whisked off to a boarding school populated by other descendants of notorious American traitors, it’s a race to discover the truth. But if Jasper doesn’t find a way to uncover the evidence his father was hunting for, he may end up paying for the sins of his forefathers with his own life.

Like a mash-up of National Treasure and Hamilton, Matthew Landis’s debut spins the what-ifs of American history into a heart-pounding thriller steeped in conspiracy, clue hunting, and danger.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

     

I love history, but not in the old, awful, kill-me-now-please kind of way. My passion is convincing my students that the past is actually hilarious, shocking, tragic, disturbing, and altogether UN-boring. While getting my graduate degree in History at Villanova, I realized that there was yet one more way to do this: write contemporary young adult books laced with history to convince my students that past isn't as awful as they think. That’s a huge reason why I wrote The Judas Society.

Some other stuff: I love poetry but don’t understand it; I want Gordon Ramsay to give me a fatherly hug at some point; I tend toward the unapologetically dramatic; and (to my great shame) I didn’t read the Harry Potter series until last year. I’m also really good at covering up patent insecurities with self-deprecating humor (like this joke).

Links:

Website- http://www.matthew-landis.com

Goodreads- https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7576140.Matthew_Landis

Twitter- https://twitter.com/AuthorLandis

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/matthewlandisauthor/

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/matthew_landis/

I asked Matthew Landis to do a post about Benedict Arnold. I wanted to give him the Hamilton treatment where we learn more about him and who he was beyond the fact that he was a traitor. His post is truly amazing and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.

We Should All Be More Like Teenage Benedict Arnold 

The English poet Christina Rossetti once said, “Life is not sweet.” A teenage Benedict Arnold would agree.

Born into a legit, New England elite family with strong Puritan traditions, Arnold was expected to be awesome—a leader in business, community, and church. For the first decade of his life, things were looking pretty good: He was at a solid school, his dad was making money, and the Arnold name meant something in Norwich, Connecticut.

But his world started falling apart.

Between the ages of ten and twenty, Arnold experienced catastrophe: His father lost the family business, became an alcoholic, and got excommunicated from the church—all giant, horrible embarrassments in a New England society of rigid class structure. And then Arnold’s mom died. Then his dad. Actually all of his immediate family passed away, except for one sister.

Told you so, Christina Rossetti would write eighty years later.

But Colonial-era-guts and good old Puritan dogma don’t allow a person to collapse under the weight of life not being a joy ride. Instead of pouting, Arnold moved to another New England town—New Haven, Connecticut—and started a new mission to regain all his father lost. Within three years, he was running a crazy-successful bookstore and spending tons of time on the trading ships of his business partner and local merchant, Adam Babcock. Arnold’s most baller move during Mission: Bring Back the Arnold Name was rebuying his family’s foreclosed home in Norwich—and then reselling it for a profit. That could have been a purely financial move, but historian Jim Murphy hints that this was of an in-your-face, old-community-that treated-us-like-crap move. I tend to agree.

So the question is: Does knowing Arnold’s hardships as a teen help us understand his decision to betray America as an adult? That’s a dangerous query that opens historians to arm-chairing this whole thing; human motivations are complex and hard to nail down. But if you asked me directly, and my grad school professors weren’t around, I’d say “yes, most definitely” because the two key markers of whether a person is prone to commit treason (according to the CIA) are psychology and circumstance. As the Revolution unfolded, and Arnold saw his reputation and personal finances crumble due to perceived and actual sleights, it could be argued that he again felt his family’s honor slipping away. When push came to shove, he was going to side with whomever would grant him what he had fought so hard to get: the mad respect he was due.

Teenage Benedict had true grit. While sources are scant on how exactly he felt during those tumultuous years, it’s easy to imagine the sorrow and helplessness. But what’s harder to consider is someone today being able to summon the effort to get up when the perils of a not-sweet-life kept running them over. I’d like to be more like teenage Benedict Arnold, but pray I’m spared the circumstances that forge such endurance.

So here’s to reclaiming familial honor by forging your own way—just be careful that way doesn’t inadvertently lead you to infamous treachery. RIP, teenage Benedict.

Sources:
Details of Arnold’s life can be found in a million places, but I rely on Jim Murphy’s super-readable The Real Benedict Arnold (New York: Clarion Books, 2007). The CIA’s recently declassified study in treason I referenced can be found here - https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/0006183135, and the Rossetti work I quote is called “Life and Death.”

ABOUT THE GIVEAWAY:

•    2 copies of LEAGUE OF AMERICAN TRAITORS by Matthew Landis

•    US & Canada Only

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Thanks to the ladies of Fantastic Flying Book Tours for having me on the tour for this book. I am so excited to read it as it sounds totally up my alley. Check back this month I will have a review of the book up.

And thank you so much Matthew Landis for being on the blog today. And for that awesome info about Benedict Arnold. I really want to do some more research about him and learn more. You have piqued my interest for sure. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!

Obsidian and Stars Blog Tour: Guest Post with Julie Eshbaugh and Giveaway

Hi Everyone, 

I am so excited to be on the blog tour for this book. I really like Ivory and Bone. I thought it was a super creative concept and a thrilling read. I love me some historical fiction and the fact that this series is set during prehistory (more on that later) makes it so unique and I loved that. So when I saw that Fantastic Flying Book Tours was doing this one I knew I had to be a part of it. But enough about me, let's get to the good stuff.

Obsidian and Stars

(Ivory and Bone #2)
byJulie Eshbaugh
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: June 13, 2017
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Synopsis:

After surviving the chaotic battle that erupted after Lo and the Bosha clan attacked, now Mya is looking ahead toher future with Kol. All the things that once felt so uncertain are finally falling into place. But the same night as Kol and Mya’s betrothal announcement, Mya’s brother Chev reveals his plan to marry his youngest sister Lees to his friend Morsk. The only way to avoid this terrible turn of events, Morsk informs Mya when hecorners her later, is for Mya to take Lees’ place and marry him herself.

Refusing to marry anyone other than her beloved, and inaneffort to protect her sister, Mya runs away to a secret island with Lees. And though it seems like the safest place to hide until things back home blow over, Mya soon realizes she’s been followed. Lurking deep inthe recesses of this dangerous place are rivals from Mya’s past whose thirst for revenge exceeds all reason.

With the lives of her loved ones on the line, Mya must make a move before the enemies of her past become the undoing of her future.

Hi Julie, thanks so much for being on the blog today. I'm so excited to ask you about Obsidian and Stars. I loved Ivory and Bone, and one of my favorite things about it was the setting.What inspired you to set a book during the prehistoric time period? 

Thank for having me on the blog today, Cassi!

I love this question. The truth is, the idea to set a story in prehistory didn’t come tome all at once. There was no big “ ah-ha!” moment. Instead, it came to me in little pieces, over a long period of time.

It all started at the Museum of London. I was visiting London for the first time, and I found myself standing in front of an animated display of the city as if I were looking down on it from above. The view started in the present day, with all the city of London’s streets and neighborhoods laid out below, and rolled back through time—through the Victorian era, through the Middle Ages, until we were looking down on that same spot of land along the Thames thousands of years ago. It showed a forest with herds moving through the trees. Then, smoke began to rise from the ground—the smoke of hearth fires. The thought of people living in that wilderness tens of thousands of years ago fascinated me. How did they live? Who did they love? What did they aspire to? These questions would not leave my mind.

I went home and sketched out some ideas for a story and tucked them away.

A few years later, I read an article about recent archaeological discoveries, and how new information was changing the way scientists thought about the first Americans. The article talked about the latest theories—that the earliest people to come to North America traveled along the coast from Eastern Asia, using boats. I dug into some nonfiction, most notably First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America by David J. Meltzer. This book talked about the struggles and obstacles that these first Americans would have faced, including a specific threat that this vast, open wilderness would have presented to small, far-flung clans—the threat of dying out if they failed to connect with other clans and find spouses.

These ideas turned in my mind and led to the plot and characters of IVORY AND BONE and OBSIDIAN AND STARS. But it took a long time! I just found myself thinking about these people and daydreaming about their lives, until I knew I had to write their story.

Thanks again for having me on the blog today! This was such a fun question to answer!

Thanks so much for being here, Julie! That is totally fascinating. I also think about what a location was like when it was first inhabited so this is totally up my alley. And I don't think I've heard about that article. I remember seeing something about how Early Americas traveled here but I had always heard it was from a land bridge from Asia but the boats along the coast makes a lot of sense. Now I want to look into it more. Thanks again!

Julie Eshbaugh is the author of Ivory and Bone (HarperCollins, 2016). She used to have trouble staying in one spot, having lived in places as varied as Utah, France, and New York City. Julie eventually returned home to the Philadelphia area, where she now lives with her husband, son, cat and dog. Her favorite moments are when the unexpected happens and she cheers loudest when the pitcher gets a hit.

• 1 Finished Copy of OBSIDIAN AND STARS by Julie Eshbaugh

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Blog Tour: The Love Interest by Cale Deitrich Guest Post and Giveaway

Thanks to Fantastic Flying Book Tours for having me on the blog tour of The Love Interest. This is definitely one of my lost anticipated reads of the month because it sounds like it's totally up my alley and like a fun and unique contemporary and/or thriller that plays with the tropes. 

The Love Interest

by Cale Dietrich
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Release Date: May 16, 2017
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, LGBTQIA

Synopsis:

There is a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. The agents are called Love Interests because getting close to people destined for great power means getting valuable secrets.

Caden is a Nice: The boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: The brooding, dark-souled guy, and dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose a Nice or the Bad?

Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be – whoever the girl doesn’t choose will die.

What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both.

Being that this is basically a book about teenage spies, something that I am a huge fan of, I thought it woulfd be fun to ask Cale what some of his favorite books about teenage spies are. Here's what he said:

So, this is slightly difficult for me to answer, as I didn’t really set out to write The Love Interest as a spy novel! It’s kinda bizarre, because that’s what it is, but my initial idea was inspired by the meta concept of a training academy for the hot love interests of YA fiction more than it was by spy books. In fact, I don’t think it had truly sunk in that the book I had written was a spy story until I saw the cover. When I saw it for the first time, I was like: “Oh, THAT’S the genre of this book I wrote”. But as I was drafting, I was writing an extremely personal gay coming of age book that was also a meta take on YA fiction.

That said, there are two spy stories that I love that I’ve read recently. The first is YOU DON’T KNOW MY NAME by Kristen Orlando. I thought this was a bunch of fun, and features a truly badass protagonist. I also recently read a 2018 book that everyone should have on their radar. It’s called #Prettyboy Must Die by Kimberly Reid, and it’s a fun and action-packed thrill ride.

Growing up, I loved the Alex Rider books. They are the kind of high stakes, action heavy books with amazing voice that I love. It’s highly possible that these book influenced TLI in ways I’m not consciously aware of.

On the film side, I’m a huge fan of SKYFALL. I had an absolute blast watching that in IMAX It’s just SO cool, and was the first time a James Bond story clicked for me. Kingsman is also a freaking fantastic movie: it’s hilarious and surprising and the action in it is amazing.

Lastly, I think I should mention THIS MEANS WAR, which I have seen, but not for a while. Readers often tell me that TLI is like THIS MEANS WAR if the two guys hooked up, which I think is such an awesome comparison. I need to watch it again to make sure, but yeah, I thought it was worth mentioning!

Thanks Cale for answering my question and sharing some of the spy stories that you like. I have not read or seen many of the ones you mentioned but I do love Skyfall, I mean who doesn't love James Bond. And I have a copy of You Don't Know My Name that I haven't read yet. I may have to move that up the TBR. 

Cale Dietrich is a YA devotee, lifelong gamer, and tragic pop punk enthusiast. He was born in Perth, grew up on the Gold Coast, and now lives in Brisbane, Australia. The Love Interest is his first novel.

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Thanks Fantastic Flying Book Tours for having me on the tour, and check out the rest of the tour! I just started The Love Interest so don't forget to come back next week for my review. It sounds totally up my alley. Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY READING!