Big Warm Welcome.

Introductions posts are always weird. It’s a little similar the beginning of a book. How should you start it? A cliché is to introduce yourself with your name. Hi! My name is… but that’s a bit boring. Of course, there’s no other way around it, is there? I have to tell you my name at some point, otherwise, what is the purpose of the post? So, please excuse my major cliché moment.

Hello! My name is Brianna. I’m a senior at Sarah Lawrence. I’ll be working with the lovely Nicole and Amy on the blog. I couldn’t be more excited. I absolutely love book reviews and think they are a great way for readers to test out a book before they actually start it. Book reviewing is a total art and I think a favorable review can really bolster the book to stardom, especially if the review is by the right person. Look at The Hunger Games trilogy. The books exploded after Stephenie Meyer gave her endorsement and then also when Stephen King recommended it. So, book reviewing, recommending and blogging are something I am very excited to be a part of. Especially since one day, I hope to receive many great reviews.

A quick little history of moi: In addition to being an avid reader and aspiring YA novelist, I am a Senior Associate Editor at a literary magazine called First Inkling. I’m one of the submissions managers, which means that I read a lot. However, a lot of what I read are mostly short stories and poems written by undergrad and grad college students. I love it and the magazine has definitely helped widen my reader palate. I went from reading primarily YA fiction-and mostly paranormal-to reading literary fiction, memoir, non-fiction. I realized that as an editor I needed to become well read and as a young woman right out of high school only reading things that resembled the Hunger Games or Harry Potter really wasn’t going to help me. I’m so glad that I became less picky, although I am still just a bit. I suppose the only way to really get over that is to keep reading.

I’ll try to bring a variety of books to the blog. Currently I am in the middle of The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, an excellent literary fiction novel about two young soldiers serving in Iraq at the beginning of the war. After that I’ll try to move onto some YA books because I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I haven’t read Divergent yet! Gasp!

I’m a big fan of dystopian stories, but who isn’t currently? I’ve always enjoyed the paranormal romance a la Meg Cabot as well. However, writers like Gayle Forman and Lauren Oliver have done an excellent job in creating this sub genre of real life/magical realism novels such as If I Stay and Before I Fall that I find really fascinating. I also love discovering new writers, no matter the genre. A lot of my job at First Inkling is discovering the great writers before they’ve been published and still in school. So I’m very interested in reading first novels or books by writers who haven’t hit that buzz yet. That being said, I’m pretty much down for reading anything as long as the story interests me. I’m willing to get over my picky.

As far as introductions go, I think that’s about it. I really want to thank Nicole for allowing me to co-blog with her. To commemorate the start of the blog, I went to BEA for the first time. I met some pretty amazing people. I can't wait to tell you about it. I gathered books to review for Paperback Princess but I also worked with the Young Adult Review Network. I live tweeted them updates from the expo and shared my amazement and excitement. I'll tell you more about it in my next post! Until then, happy reading!

Ellen Oh Guest Post

I really enjoyed reading Prophecy even though I am someone that doesn't read high fantasy usually. Since this whole world was very foreign to me, I asked the wonderful Ellen Oh to tell me more about how Prophecy was born to I could get an inside look at this world, and here I am, sharing it with you. Prophecy hit stores on January 2nd so go out and get a copy. You can find my review of it posted on January 9th.

The Making of Prophecy

The wonderful Ellen Oh

It started with Genghis Khan. Strange, right? But he is the reason I became so fascinated with Asian history – in particular ancient Korean history. That’s because back in the year 2000, Genghis Khan was named Man of the Millennium by Time magazine. I remember buying that issue and reading all about him and thinking how cool it was that an Asian man was considered the most influential man of the millennium. So I went and bought a bunch of biographies on Genghis and I just fell in love with all the Asian history I learned. It made me crave more information. But it was actually really hard to find a lot of books on ancient Korea. And there was hardly any fiction novels at all other than Linda Sue Park’s classic novel A Single Shard. This is really the reason I began writing again. (I hadn’t written creatively since college.) I just felt that all these amazing historical facts would make for a great novel.

Between the years 2000 and 2006, I wrote 2 novels which are hidden in my files, never to be looked at again. Well, maybe one day I’ll rewrite them. But another thing that happened during this period is that I was reading a lot with my kids. We were always in bookstores and libraries reading book after book. And as they got older, I began to become dissatisfied with the lack of cultural diversity in the books we were reading. We loved reading fantasies, but they were all western centric. And I kept thinking how wonderful it would be to have an Korean fantasy based on the myths and legends of Korea. (As an aside, a wonderful Chinese fantasy finally was published in 2011 – Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.) At the same time, I was also very conscious of raising 3 daughters and the rampant feminist in me wanted to use every opportunity I could to teach them that girls can do anything a boy can do, and better.

It was back in 2007, I was stuck in beltway traffic staring at the unmoving bumper of the car in front of me when the idea hit me. What if there is a legend about a great hero, and everyone thinks it is this young  prince but then it turns out to be his despised girl cousin? I wrote the whole outline on little pieces of paper as I was stuck in traffic and ended up writing the whole book in 5 months. Of the 3 books I’ve written, Prophecy was the one that came out so smoothly, so easily. It felt like it was meant to be told.

I used a lot of legends and myths of Korea. One of the most famous legend is the story of the Rock of the Falling Flowers. It is a cliff in the old Paekche kingdom where 3,000 court ladies leapt to their deaths when faced with the invading Tang and Shilla army. Their colorful hanboks made them look like falling flowers – hence the name. I also use the myth of the 8 Heavenly Maidens and then twisted it to suit my needs. Usually, the folktales have the Heavenly Maidens descending to earth and bathing in a pool and some poor woodcutter comes and steals one of their clothes. Without her clothes the heavenly maiden cannot return home and is forced to marry the woodcutter. Well I never liked that myth. As far as I’m concerned, that poor woodcutter is a stalker/peeping tom/kidnapper. So I changed that myth to make my Heavenly Maidens strong and with an important purpose in life.

I admit that I love research. I’ve spent over ten years of my life learning as much as I can about ancient Asian history. And yet there is so much more to learn. The more research I uncover, the more stories pop into my head, which is a good thing with 2 more books to write!  

Interview and Giveaway With Brandy Purdy

Let me start this post off by saying I met Purdy Online about two years ago when I stumbled across Vengeance is Mine which was the original tile of The Boleyn Wife. I sent her a desperate email because I wanted to read that book so badly and I had to find out how to get my hands on that book. Kindly, she responded to my email, and told me that it was published under the new title, and then she did something amazing, she offered to send me the book.

In that one moment of kindness, she made a lifelong reader. She not only sent me The Boleyn Wife, but also bookmarks to go with it. I still use one of those bookmarks and it is the longest that I have ever used a traditional bookmark (I was generally partial to ripped pieces of paper). I actually get really bummed out when I misplace it while on the couch reading (it only falls between the pillows). When I spent the summer in New Hampshire, I found myself excited when I saw her third book, The Tudor Throne on the bookshelves of the store. Naturally I bought it as my way of showing her that I still supported her and was interested in what she was writing.

So take this moment to get to know her, because she is a wonderful woman and writer. It will also behoove you to check out my Giveaway tab to see how you can find out all about this wonderful author.

Frey Review, Giveaway and Interview

Author: Melissa Wright
Goodreads Rating: 3.92
My Rating: 4 Stars
Pages: 468
Reviewed by: Nicole


So this is the fourth stop on the tour for Frey, a new Fantasy trilogy. This tour is hosted by Cassie over at Shadow Blog Tours. I'm really grateful that I got to participate in this tour because I really enjoyed Frey and I already bought the second book in the trilogy, Pieces of Eight. I will be offering a chance to win both Frey and Pieces of Eight in the format of your choosing!


Goodreads Synopses:


Unaware she's been bound from using magic, Frey leads a small, miserable life in the village where she's sent after the death of her mother. But a tiny spark starts a fury of changes and she finds hersef running from everything she's ever known.

Hunted by council for practicing dark magic, she is certain she's been wrongfully accused. She flees, and is forced to rely on strangers for protection. But the farther she strays from home, the more her magic and forgotten memories return and she begins to suspect all is not as it seems.


My review:


Let me start off by saying that this is about an Elf, Frey is an elf which actually took me half the book to figure out. I had my suspicious, but in literature, anyone can do magic. Now that you know this, you can enjoy the review. Frey was a cute likable character who was super naive about who she is and the path that she is on. She also has no idea what she is capable of which is great because you can feel her wonder and amazement as she discovers new things about herself.


I liked how Wright slowly reveals Frey's history and the history of her family as she went on this journey. Even though the page count seemed intimidating, it was a really quick read once I really settled down to read it. I also really enjoyed the addition of Rhys and Rider who were raised by wolves and now worked with them for protection. (I see what you did there Wright, Romulus and Remus. I totally approve). 


I also enjoyed the tension added by Steed and Chevelle both hinting that they were interested in Frey, although something tells me that there is more to Chevelle and Frey's relationship and she just doesn't know it yet. I do have to say from the cast of characters, Ruby, the part Elf, part Fairie, red haired flame was my favorite. She seemed to be the caring of everyone that was involved. Even if Frey didn't like her, I could tell that they would be friends eventually.


To find out more about Frey's journey, you're just going to have to enter to win behind the jump!


Giveaway and Interview with Melissa Wright behind the jump!