The Rebellion by Isabelle

Lana waited for the search light to make another round, counting down the sequence she’d committed to memory. Rubbing sweaty palms on her thighs, she straightened her shoulders, crouching low for the run.

“Get ready,” she called behind her.

3-2-1.

They rushed across the abandoned plaza and ducked into the sharp angles of the building’s entryway. Jo’s feet were solid lead, banging on the concrete, her breath a frantic pant behind her. Lana waited for the sirens, her heart in her throat, her body tensed for another run. The army never came.

There was only silence. Silence and the sound of Jo’s hysterical breathing.

“Think you could breathe a little louder, Jo?,” she bit over her shoulder. “I don’t think the guards quite hear you.”

“Nick said he’d be here.”

“And he will.”

“Then where is he?”

“Maybe he’s running late.” Lana cupped her hand above her eyes and pressed against the glass. Everything within the building was still dark, only shadows and moonlight dancing in slow circles across the stark white tiles.

The Frozen Castle by Lisa

I sweep the frost from the path, whisking it away, just as my lady always asked of me when winter came. Some small part of me asks why I bother, when it will only build up again, with no feet to wander it but my own, and that of my broom.

It’s a curse that brought this everlasting winter on the castle of my birth. A curse, and love. Though what the difference is these days, I’m only half sure I remember.

With the grounds cleared, I gather my courage, to walk among statues.

Life Science by Isabelle

I sense the moment she walks into the room.

“A little early for lunch,” I call over my shoulder, glancing at the large clock that hangs above the white board. “Just couldn’t wait to see me, huh?” I smirk, pour another liquid into the vial hanging above the Bunsen burner. “Don’t blame you. I’m pretty irresistible.”

She doesn’t speak, doesn’t laugh. My hands freeze where they are, the liquid in the beakers sloshing from side to side at my sudden lack of movement. I don’t turn around. I don’t have to. I know she’s there. I feel it.

She brings a mass of unspeakable energy with her everywhere she goes. Usually, it’s vibrant and warm, like being touched, embraced by a brilliant star. Today, it’s not. It crashes and cracks within her tiny frame like a thousand lightning storms.

The skin on my back prickles and burns where she stares. My eyes slip closed. I choke on the emotion her very presence conjures. My chest fills to the brim with pressure I can’t afford to release. So I exhale slowly, placing my equipment on the lab table, and force a smile as I turn to face her.

She stands no more than three feet away, her arm extended.

I’m staring down the barrel of her gun.

Euphoria by Isabelle

Here’s the truth. I’m a mistake. An accident.

A girl like me should not exist. Not because it’s impossible, (although let’s face it, it is) but because I’m just not cut out for the job.

I had a crappy childhood, like most of those nobody girls in fairytales who end up marrying princes. But I didn’t get a prince. I just became a freak.

Serendipity School by Lisa

I felt like I’d been in that taxi forever. We’d driven far outside Birmingham, into open countryside. Now we were pulled up next to a small wooden sign that said Serendipity School of Practical Magic and Mysticism.

I didn’t know what to expect. A castle, maybe. No, that’s ridiculous. This is real life, not Harry Potter.

Still, I didn’t expect this. This old house, all gables and bare-branch trees and curtained windows. This place screamed witch. And that’s not… really what I am. Is it?

I didn’t want to be a witch. Witches were old and warty and apparently meltable by water. I was sixteen, Homecoming Queen, and very fond of baths.

Gimlet by Lisa

I was seven when we moved into the house.  It was a huge place—a mansion, really.  I remember tiptoeing through the rooms like it was a museum, afraid to touch any of the ornate furniture.

My parents got it for a ridiculously low price.  Mom thought it must mean the house was a lemon, but Dad’s a contractor, and he checked the whole thing out himself.  I guess the reason it was so cheap was because people thought it was haunted.  Things would happen in the house… furniture would move, messes would be made that no one in the house saw happen.  It spooked people.  The house had been relisted seven times in the past five years.

My parents don’t believe in things like that, so it didn’t stop them from snapping the house up.  Little things did start to happen, but usually they just blamed me for it.  It wasn’t me.  It was him.

I liked to call him Gimlet.  We’d lived in the house for almost six months when I first saw him.  He was a tiny little man, maybe eight inches tall, with disproportionately wide hips and an oversized nose—everything else about him was thin and bony.  He was a very strange little man.

He was angry when I discovered him, toppling over the bobbins of thread in my mother’s sewing room.  He screamed at me in a language I didn’t understand, jumping up and down in a rage.  I think he was mad that we’d come and lived in his house without asking him.

I tried to tell my parents about Gimlet, but they thought I was making up stories.  When I showed my mother the sewing room, she folded her arms and gave me a lecture about how I should never blame things on other people—especially imaginary ones.

After that, Gimlet wouldn’t let me sleep at night.  He’d come in and pull my hair and pinch my nose and make a ruckus, right next to my ears.  I didn’t know what to do.  I tried telling Mom about him again, but she was still mad about the sewing room, and she just ignored me.

And then it hit me.  Maybe Gimlet wasn’t so bad… maybe I just wasn’t treating him the way I should be.  I was a Girl Scout, after all… I knew what Brownies were.  Brownies were helpful creatures.  I didn’t know if Gimlet was a Brownie, but it gave me an idea.

Book Geek Wednesday: The Evolution of Book Trailers

In case you guys haven’t noticed (which if you read the blog on an even semi-regular basis, you must have) I have a thing for book trailers. I really love the possibilities of the medium. The combination of ambiance, visual imagery, and that somehow still capture the ‘feel’ of a book. It’s hard to explain but when a book trailer is done right… you just know.

This one made me giddy. Because something about it is just magical.

Book trailers walk a fine line. They should be more than just an advertisement, in a way. It’s not meant to look like a commercial, it’s meant to tell the story in much less space and time, to captivate the way a blurb captivates, or an excerpt. But many people don’t understand that about book trailers just yet.

Are there any other trailers you guys have seen that have really captured your imagination?

Movie Magic Monday: Books to Movies Updates

I’ve spent most of the weekend reading. Like hard core, walking with a book in my hand and crashing against doors kind of reading. Reading for pleasure and to refuel the muse. I haven’t done that for FAR too long. It felt SO good.

When I was done with my mental vacation (two books in two days!), I played online a bit and found some really awesome news, which you all might already know, but which I’m just finding out, so here it is.

On September 30th, Maggie Stiefvater announced that Shiver has been optioned for a movie. Can I beg for Lament and Ballad to join those ranks?! PLZ?!

That’s not all. Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty, is also coming to theaters.

Let’s get you even more excited, shall we? One of my very favorite characters of all time, Ramona Quimby, has a movie in the works! Ramona and Beezus comes out sometime in August of this year, and it stars Disney teen queen Selena Gomez, and itty bitty Joey King as Ramona.

And of course, no one can forget Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, (pt 1? seriously?), coming in September.

EDITED TO ADD:

Is anyone else as psyched about this YA book to movie revolution?! It’s everywhere! Percy Jackson, Wimpy Kid, Eclipse, etc. I feel like I’m in movie heaven. Granted, they wont’ all be great. But the fact that they’re getting done and drawing attention to the amazing variety of YA books out there- priceless.

Book Geek Wednesday: Discussion

I thought I would try something a little different for Book Geek Wednesday this week.

I wanted to talk about what you-the readers- do when for some reason or another, you cannot get through a book. There are of course a million reasons why this might be happen. You might lead busy, active lives which leave little time for reading. These active lives might leave you too tired at night to get past a few pages at a time. You may be distracted, thinking about that job interview or that boy who works at the coffee shop. You might not be used to the genre or the voice (I always have to readjust when reading contemporaries, because I’m just NOT a contemporary kind of gal). The book may not be what you expected. Or… in the worst case scenario, it’s just not as interesting as you’d hoped.

What do you do? Do you continue to read or do you consider it a lost cause?

I’m someone who feels a certain obligation to a book once I’ve started it. It’s very difficult for me to just put it down and say forget it, not worth it. In fact, I can tell you how many times in my entire life that’s happened (3). It’s a rare occurence. But what if, despite your best intentions, you can’t seem to get through the book?

My suggestion: try, try, and try again. Books are such a personal thing. Often, their impact on us have to do with our own mood and head place. And often, a writer is setting something major up, and we just need to get past that ‘build-up’ to get to the good part.

This happened to me recently. I tried reading The Luxe by Anna Godbersen (I know, not FANTASY! But historical YA tends to create worlds of its own as well) and could NOT for the life of me get past the first chapter. I kept falling asleep.

A friend of mine raved about it left and right and I thought, am I missing something? So I tried again, and again. It took me 3 times and really pushing through that first chapter.  Boy am I glad I did. This book was fantastic, and the characters were so memorable. But it just took me a while to really get into the voice and the time period.

The second time this happened to me, I wasn’t so lucky. I kept struggling with A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, which I reviewed, and as you see, I wasn’t thrilled with it. But, not every book is going to be a home run.

I guess my point is, don’t give up on it, if you’re having a hard time getting through it. You may find it’s a treasure in disguise.

Thoughts?

Lisa’s Tuesday Perspective: Blue is for Nightmares by Laurie Faria Stolarz

This is one of those books that I’ve picked up in the book store probably a dozen times, then set it back down without even reading the back cover.  I admit it.  Even after having seen it probably a dozen times, I still didn’t have the faintest idea what it was about.  Then one day I finally just sat down and started reading it.  Yes, right there in the store.  I was recovering from a half-hour long walk (after a 45 minute workout that morning) so I really needed to sit for a bit, and finally I let my curiousity for “that colored candle series” overtake me.

Within a few pages, I was hooked.  I could tell right away that this narrator (first person, btw) was a cut above the average.  Firstly, I could almost hear  her voice in my head from page one.  I knew fairy quickly that I liked her, and that she was a fairly smart cookie.

And, oh yeah, it was scary.

I mean… spine-tingler suspense movie scary.  I don’t remember the last time I was this creeped out by a book.  There were nights when I’d finish a chapter, then have to read something safe (I mean, really safe, like Anne of Green Gables safe) just to uncreepify myself enough to turn the light off and go to sleep.

The main character, Stacey, is a witch who gets premonition-like dreams.  But she’s not an eye-of-newt kind of witch, or even the type you’d see on say, Supernatural, with hex bags and whatnot.  Stacey’s spells are all fairly homeopathic, including things like incense, olive oil and herbs.  So while hard-core Wiccan stuff freaks me out a bit, this was… okay.  This was something just about tangible stuff.  She knows her dreams—of someone trying to kill her best friend and roommie Drea—are possibly leading up to an actual event, since she’s had the unfortunate experience of dreaming murderly dreams before, but all she has to go on are her somewhat incoherent dreams.  Dreams, and the creepy messages and packages that keep appearing from the would-be killer.  All she has to help her figure all this out is her magic, and a little bit of guidance from her [dead] grandmother, who also had the gift.

Stacey’s dreams are really horror-story nightmare stuff, and I was flipping pages in this book faster than my norm by far.  The only disappointment I had in this book (no spoilers, I promise) is that the big confrontation scene at the end isn’t half as scary as the dreams leading up to it.  Possibly this is a good thing—and I guess it really does make sense now that I look back, because reality is rarely as bad as the things we can imagine, and the doubt of the unknown, but it seemed a little anti-climactic in the novel.

Still, I’m happily reading the sequel as we speak, and am already looking forward to finishing off the series with Stacey and her friends.  Very nice characters mixed in with the drama and scary stuff!

My rating overall: A very strong A-