Winners

I never heard back from the winner of the Jessica Sorensen giveaway, so a new number was picked by the random number generator. The new winner is Krystal Larson!! Congrats! Please contact me for details about receiving your books. (My email is in the sidebar).

I also have the winners of the Nichole Chase giveaway. Congrats to Jackie B and librarypat!! Please email me for details about receiving your digital copy of the book.

Big hugs and thanks to both Nichole Chase & Jessica Sorensen for spending time with us here at SVR and for supplying the books for the giveaways. Thank you also to my awesome readers, both old and new. I love reading your answers to the questions in the giveaways and always enjoy your comments and feedback on my other posts. I am sending you all virtual chocolate for being so great! 😀

Jessica Sorensen Giveaway Winner

I know you’re all dying to find out who won the copies of Jessica Sorensen’s The Fallen Star and The Underworld, so I won’t torture you and make you wait, lol..  Random.org gave me #9, so the winner is Melissa Perea!!! 😀 Congrats! Please email me for details.

As always, many thanks to both Jessica Sorensen for coming by and for the giveaway copies of her books, and to all the wonderful readers & followers who commented. If I haven’t heard back from the winner in 7 days, a new winner will be chosen from the eligible entries.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

I’m still pretty much down & out with this never-ending flu. 😦 I have a few reviews and a guest blog lined up for tomorrow and next week, so bear with my lolly-gagging about because I am just slogging through my flu infested life right now.

Jessica Sorensen – Guest Blog & Giveaway

   

Today we are happy to have debut YA author Jessica Sorensen here with us at SVR to celebrate the release of her second book in The Fallen Star series, The Underworld! She’s written up a great scene between some of the main characters in the series which had me laughing. This is a good way to get to know some of the characters and have a taste of Jessica’s writing.

Jessica has generously offered up print copies of both The Fallen Star and The Underworld to one lucky commenter! Giveaway details will be at the end of the post. Let’s give Jessica a warm welcome!  🙂

———————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Being in a jail cell sucks. Especially when you’re locked in one with a very annoying faerie/Foreseer, an overly emotional witch, a Keeper/vampire who just recently discovered his thirst for blood, and a Keeper who can make your skin heat in ways you didn’t even know were possible.

“What are we going to do?” Aislin whined with tears streaming down her cheeks. “This can’t be happening.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Aislin quit crying.”

She wiped her tears away. “I can’t. I mean, this is so bad—us being locked up in here.” She pointed at Alex and me. “And you two—you can’t be this close to one another.”

She was probably right. Alex and I were sharing a bench with one another. Plus, it was awfully electric in here. That was when I realized Alex’s hand was on top of mine. We both pulled away.

“It smells like feet in here,” Laylen suddenly said, looking over at Nicholas.”Really, really bad.”

Nicholas gave Laylen a dirty look. “It’s not my feet.”

I laughed. “Yeah, his feet probably smell like flowers.” Everyone looked at me and I furrowed my eyebrows. “Sorry, I have no idea where that came from…Well, actually I do. It’s because he smells like flowers.” I was being rude—I knew that, but I didn’t know why.

“It’s so hot in here.” Aislin fanned her hand in front of her face. “And Laylen looks really hot today.”

Awkward silence filled the air.

“Oh my God,” Aislin said. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“You said it because he does look hot today,” I told her and then felt my face heat.

Laylen looked back and forth between Aislin and me. “As much as I love the fact that both of you think I look hot, I think there might be something wrong.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s my feet that smell,” Alex said with his nose scrunched up.

Aislin and I gave Alex a grossed out look and Laylen shook his head and said, “Too much information, dude.”

“If this is what you guys sit around and talk about all day,” Nicholas said, “then I’m a little bit relieved I’m evil and don’t have to listen to it.”

“This is not what we talk about all day,” I informed him. “Mostly we just lie to each other about our feelings…well, that’s me and Alex. Laylen and I actually have very nice talks.” I slapped my hand over my mouth. Why did I say that out loud?

Alex looked both confused and hurt, and then suddenly, he was jumping to his feet. “Hold on a second.” He climbed up on the bench and peeked through a vent on the wall. “Crap.” He turned to us. “There’s a truth tank in there. The room is being ventilated with truth gas.”

“Great!” Aislin cried, nervously twirling her hair around her finger. “Now Laylen’s going to know I still have feelings for him.” Her green eyes widened and she looked down at the floor.

“We already knew that.” Alex gave me an angry look. “But what we didn’t know is that Laylen and Gemma have feelings for each other. At least, that’s what I think.”

“It’s true,” Laylen said, and then his eyebrows dipped down.

Alex looked at me, waiting for me to respond.

I tried to keep my mouth shut, but apparently, the truth gas was stronger. “Sometimes I think I do…I mean, have feelings for Laylen…But I have a lot of feelings for you too, and it’s all really confusing.” I wanted to shrink myself into a little ball and hide. This was so bad.

“You know, when I was little, I wanted to be a ballerina,” Nicholas said.

Okay, so maybe mine wasn’t that bad.

“A boy ballerina,” Nicholas clarified as everyone stared at him.

Alex cocked an eyebrow. “So you wanted to wear a tutu.”

Nicholas crossed his arms and looked over at the wall. “No, I just wanted to dance.”

“That’s great, Nicholas.” Alex gave Laylen an “okay” look.

“Boy’s can be ballerinas, Alex,” Aislin said. “I mean, when you were little, you begged me to teach you how to tap dance.”

“I liked the noise the shoes made,” Alex gritted through his teeth.

Laylen held back a smile. “Was that the only reason?”

Alex shot him an angry look.  “No, I—”

“How about we all just stop talking,” Aislin interrupted, “before something really bad slips out of one of our mouths.”

“Like the fact that you once kissed Nicholas,” Alex said, and Aislin glared at him. “That one was for the tap dance remark.”

“You kissed Nicholas?” Laylen’s bright blue eyes widened with shock. “When?”

“Don’t worry,” Nicholas told him. “It wasn’t when you two were dating or anything.” He paused. “And it wasn’t that great of a kiss…not like when I kissed Gemma.”

I shook my head. “That’s great, except I hated our kiss.” Before I could stop myself I added, “the only person I want to kiss is Alex…well, and sometimes I think about kissing Laylen.”

It got really quiet.

“Awkward,” Nicholas muttered.

“Yeah, I think about kissing you too,” Laylen mumbled with a perplexed look on his face.

“And sometimes I think about punching you,” Alex snapped, stepping toward Laylen.

“Same here,” Laylen bit back.

“Please make it stop,” Aislin wailed, looking up at the ceiling.

“Yes, please do,” I agreed, looking up at the ceiling too, wondering who she was talking to.

Suddenly there was a loud buzz, and then the cell door swung open.

“Times up,” a guard said.

Thank God.

———————————————————————————————————————————–

  

Thanks Jessica! That was awesome, lol. If you’ve already read the first book, then you know just how great this scene was. 😀

Giveaway Details:

Jessica Sorensen has been gracious enough to supply one print copy of each of her books The Fallen Star & The Underworld! That’s right, one winner will receive both of her books! Contest is open to Everyone. I believe that Jessica will be popping by to respond to comments or questions as she’s able, so feel free to ask her questions as well.

Question: Have you ever had a really awkward moment with someone you were really attracted to? Fess up and give us some details!

For one entry: Please leave a comment with the answer to the question.  (+1 entry)

For extra entries:

I’m going to streamline this, so for each follow on twitter, facebook, goodreads or subscription to my blog, you can add an extra entry but be sure to let me know in your comment along with your username at each of them.

If you tweet about this contest, post it on facebook or post about it in your blog, for each link you provide, you get an extra entry.

• Contest is open to Everyone and will run through October 12th until 11:59pm. The winners will be posted here on October 13th.
• Please leave your email addy in your comment for me to contact you if you’ve won, but please post it like wilmaflinstone(at)boomshakalaka(dot)com so you don’t get any spam. If I haven’t heard back from the winner in 7 days, a new winner will be drawn from the eligible comments. Winners will be chosen on www.random.org  by a random number generator. Good Luck everyone!

Please leave your links in one comment if possible. And yes I know I should get that Rafflecopter everyone’s using, lol.  Thanks!

 

 

The Fallen Star – Spotlight & Review

 The Fallen Star by Jessica Sorensen

• Reading level:Young Adult
• Paperback:452 pages
• Publisher:CreateSpace (April 11, 2011)
• Language:English
• ISBN-10:1461052149
• ISBN-13: 978-1461052142

Book Description:

“For eighteen year-old Gemma, life has never been normal. Up until recently, she has been incapable of feeling emotion. And when she’s around Alex, the gorgeous new guy at school, she can feel electricity that makes her skin buzz. Not to mention the monsters that haunt her nightmares have crossed over into real-life.
But with Alex seeming to hate her and secrets popping up everywhere, Gemma’s life is turning into a chaotic mess. Things that shouldn’t be real suddenly seem to exist. And as her world falls apart, figuring out the secrets of her past becomes a matter of life and death.”

My Thoughts:

I ended up really liking this book! It was a bit hard for me to get into initially because I found that there was a little too much internal dialogue, too much repetition in the “she’s a loner” theme and not enough action or descriptions of why things were the way they were. Too much telling and not enough showing in other words. But as I kept reading, I really got into the characters and the story. (Don’t worry, the explanations come later in the book). I am also really wanting to read the next book, The Underworld, to see what happens next. 🙂

So to put it in simpler terms, great characters – check, good world building – check, good plot – check, originality – check, good development of the characters & plot – check. All the things that you want in a good read. I think with a bit more polishing from the author and a trip or two to a really good editor, The Fallen Star would have been an exceptional book instead of just a good one. But for a first time author, I was impressed with the total package all in all. There were some pretty obvious editing mistakes that threw me out of the story for a minute, but I would recommend it to fans of young adult paranormal fiction if you can see past the editing mistakes.

This book is available in Kindle & Nook e-book format and paperback on Amazon, though the paperback price is currently not right from what I can tell, but I’ll put the link in if you want to keep an eye on it for the price adjustment.

     

Find out more about Jessica Sorensen & what she’s working on at her BLOG  

Buy The Fallen Star at:

Amazon.com Kindle

Amazon.com Paperback

Barnes & Noble Nook